The Police have already identified 34 bodies and 7 anatomical pieces. For now, anthropological work continues and then genetic tests to identify victims.
“Mama, mama, help me because they are attacking us”Were the last words that a mother heard on her phone when she received the request for help from her son Tonio O., at 9:40 p.m. last Friday, from the Litoral Penitentiary. He is one of the 62 inmates killed between last Friday and Saturday in the confrontations at the Litoral Penitentiary.
Among those present on the morning of this Monday, November 15, outside the Police Forensic and Criminal Sciences Laboratory, located in the west of Guayaquil, was that mother who with a black sweater was waiting in silence behind the entrance gate to that police unit .
At the entrance, uniformed men kept checking those who entered and frequently cleared the citizens who were blocking the passage of cars into the interior.
At that site, the identification of corpses and other procedures of relatives of inmates continues.
There, she revealed her impotence of not being able to do anything before the pleas of her son Tonio O., who with his cousin, another victim, remained in jail until last Friday.
According to the mother, He waited a week ago for his release ballot to be released after serving a one-year sentence for being arrested with three packages of drugs.
She regretted that he was now ready to be released and could have been saved. “I know that my son was not a saint, he was a boy, he was a boy victim of so many unfortunate people who poison the youth, they caught him with three packages of drugs, they gave him a year in jail and he paid, but in the moment they should have taken it out they did not take it from me, they made me kill it, I ask for justice”Said the woman.
The largest number of murdered were in ward 2 and in a transitional area, where they were inmates awaiting sentence or for minor crimes or corruption.
With weapons and tanks, soldiers are already touring the pavilions, patios and rooftops of the Litoral Penitentiary to try to stop confrontations
Outside the Judicial Police headquarters, Ivonne Vega said that her nephew died beheaded in ward 2. She was waiting for her sister who entered to recognize her 24-year-old son Luis Fernando, who also had his last contact with his mother at 23:00. On that call, he asked for her blessing and said goodbye to his mother.
“That he loved her very much, that he would always carry her in his heart, he told his brother to take care of his mother“Said the aunt. Since then they have had no further news of him.
“Just as they had the ability to remove the bodies, that same ability must have been used to take care of the lives of those people because no one deserves as so many have died.Whatever they have done, they are human beings ”, declared Ivonne Vega, aunt of inmate Luis Fernando G., who was being held in ward 2.
Due to economic problems, she said that her sister could not expedite the legal proceedings to serve the rest of the sentence in a semi-open regime.
He had been sentenced for 5 of the 7 years after being captured in an anti-drug operation, said the aunt, who arrived from Esmeraldas to support her sister in the procedures and dismissal of her son.
A few meters away, at the main entrance with several documents in hand, Katherine Castro was saddened by the tragic departure of her nephew. In December he was already getting ready to be released from the Penitentiary after serving his sentence for the theft of a cell phone. That was simply a wish.
“He sent me the audios, he told us ‘they came to us, they came to us’, but from there I didn’t know more, I called him again, but he did not answer me,” the woman recalled crying while she waited. that other relatives, in the morgue waiting for several documents to give a Christian burial to Elvin C., 31, who spent eleven months in the prison complex.
“May they help us that there is no more death, that there is peace, that God have mercy so many innocent people, no longer war, only peace, so many people who are dying,” the woman continued.
The number of wounded during the massacre at the Litoral Penitentiary rises to 44; 2 are in critical condition
Until the morning of this Monday, Marco Ortiz, director of the Police Scientific Technical investigation, pointed out that he had already identified 34 bodies with fingerprint techniques and additionally 7 anatomical pieces of dismembered bodies.
“So we are through anthropological studies making the relationship of these pieces with the corpses in order to be able to deliver the corpses to their relatives in due course,” said the director.
Castro estimated that the experts will continue with a next stage of identification with genetic procedures that will take longer depending on the sample of corpses or anatomical pieces and their subsequent comparison with the genetic profile of the sample. That could take a month or so.
While the anthropological studies continue to continue the analysis of more corpses, another group of bodies will be tried to take profiles, as well as their relatives.
With the taking of genetic samples, the comparison between them is foreseen to determine the rest of identities.
Desperation continues for dozens of relatives of the victims of the massacre.
Five people were shot during a wake at the Popular Bastion
Trans woman, among victims of massacre
Helen Maldonado, a trans woman, is one of the 62 fatalities in the most recent massacre at the Penitentiary. He was in wing F2 of ward 2 of the prison, in which there were shots and explosions.
Helen’s death has caused a stir among groups fighting for the rights of GLBTI groups. Diane Rodríguez, who directs the Silhouette X association, said that there is a pavilion for priority groups (inmates with chronic diseases and members of the GLBTI group) in the Guayaquil prison, but that it can only be accessed when the inmates already have sentence, and Helen was still awaiting her trial.
Rodríguez does not know what crime Helen was in prison for, but she said she was worried about all the inmates. For this reason, yesterday several members held a sit-in asking for peace in the prisons and that the deaths of the members of the group be investigated. In general, this year fifteen members of the community have been assassinated. (I)
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
