2023-09-01 22:25:26
– Release of 57 prison guards and police hostages
Hostage-taking in six prisons in Guatemala ended on Friday. The 57 released guards and police officers are in good health.
Posted today at 00:25 Updated 2 hours ago
Outside Cuenca prison on September 1, 2023.
AFP
Fifty-seven prison guards and police officers, held hostage for more than 24 hours by inmates in several prisons in Ecuador, have been released, the prison administration (SNAI) announced on Friday.
The 50 officers and seven police officers, “who were held in six prisons” in the country, “have already been released, have undergone medical assessments to check their health and are in good health,” SNAI said. Laconic, the press release does not give any other details on their release or the circumstances of these hostage-takings, while the authorities have observed complete silence since the announcement of the incident the day before.
Back to normal”
“The Unified Command Post (PMU) directed the execution of the coordinated actions that made it possible to achieve this objective”, simply indicated the SNAI, affirming that “at the moment the activities are taking place normally in the penitentiary centers”. . “We are worried about the safety of our agents,” Interior Minister Juan Zapata had simply acknowledged, referring to “planned actions” aimed at “guaranteeing their safety”.
The main hostage-taking apparently took place in the prison of Cuenca (south-west), where the detainees intended to protest against operations to search their cells. A video posted on social networks, relayed by the local press but impossible to authenticate with certainty, showed a group of men in uniform, apparently held in a cell and calling on the government to negotiate.
According to the SNAI, the hostage-taking was “a response by criminal groups after the interventions of the police in the penitentiary centers of the country, the purpose of which is the discovery of prohibited objects that are used during the violence” between detainees who have claimed some 430 lives since 2021.
“The measures we have taken, especially in the penitentiary system, have provoked violent reactions from criminal organizations that seek to intimidate the state,” President Guillermo Lasso said for his part on X (ex- Twitter).
The Colombian Factor
On Wednesday, hundreds of soldiers and police carried out a search operation for weapons, ammunition and explosives in another prison, in Latacunga (south). In addition, six Colombians with a heavy criminal past, imprisoned for the assassination on August 9 of one of the favorites in the first round of the presidential election on August 20, had been transferred.
The hostage taking took place after the explosion of two car bombs in front of buildings belonging to the penitentiary administration in Quito, without causing any casualties. Twelve people, including one of Colombian nationality, were arrested for these facts, according to the authorities. An attempted mutiny also took place in a detention center for adolescents in the capital.
Police raids, cell searches, transfer of prisoners… Nothing helps: gangs and drug traffickers continue to impose their law and clash in Ecuadorian prisons, where the State still appears powerless to take the situation in hand .
Once considered an island of peace in Latin America, Ecuador, located between Colombia and Peru, the world’s two largest producers of cocaine, has been hit for several months by an unprecedented wave of violence linked to organized crime and drug trafficking.
Two gangs, “Los Choneros” and “Los Lobos”, reputed to work with the Mexican cartels, are in particular implicated in terrible massacres between prisoners who are members of rival gangs, with victims burned alive or literally cut up with knives.
On July 24, President Lasso declared a state of emergency throughout the country’s penitentiary system for 60 days, a measure that notably allows the state to send the army to prisons. “(…) We are firm and we will not back down from our objective of capturing dangerous criminals, dismantling criminal gangs and pacifying the country’s prisons,” assured Guillermo Lasso once again on Thursday.
Ecuador has 36 overcrowded prisons for 32,200 inmates, half for drug trafficking.
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