The rates of murders, robberies, and drug seizures are increasing and alarming in Zone 8, which includes Guayaquil, Durán, and Samborondón.
This situation came to international attention with the latest annual report of the “50 most violent cities in the world”, which compiles data from last year. That report includes Zone 8 or “Metropolitan Guayaquil” in 50th place, according to the Citizen Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice AC, a civil organization that tracks violence on the continent.
This report details the list of cities with murder rates by their number of inhabitants. There it is mentioned that there are 18 in Mexico, 11 in Brazil, 7 in the United States, 4 in South Africa, 4 in Colombia, 2 in Honduras, one in Puerto Rico, one in Haiti, one in Jamaica and the last position in the ranking for Zone 8, in Ecuador.
In 2021, the most violent Mexican city was Zamora, in the state of Michoacán, in Mexico. The rate of 196.63 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants of this city is the second highest recorded since this ranking was made.
Specialists in security, tourism and international trade analyze this study and report that this report can have an impact on tourism and commercial planning in Ecuador.
But there is the criterion that this position would not be exactly that of Guayaquil, since it would be in a range further away from the list of 50 cities since the measurement was not made with some cities that do not have the data and monitoring of violence.
Guayaquil, Durán and Samborondón make up one of the 50 most violent areas in the world in 2021, according to a Mexican organization
For Carlos Sevillano Páez, an expert in national security and political science, the study is exaggerated by placing Guayaquil in the rank 50 of the most violent cities in the world, since there are around 500,000 cities in the world which were not considered statistically. or they simply did not meet a requirement of the study based on the incidence of homicides in a population of less than 300,000 inhabitants.
He mentioned the case of cities in Venezuela that, as the study also details, could not be measured due to lack of accessibility or scope of data, so Guayaquil could be in a range further from position 50.
“Mentioning that Ecuador has an extremely violent city weakens the image of both the central and local governments, not to mention that it weakens Ecuador’s efforts to promote tourism and culture. Today Guayaquil, a city of around 3 million inhabitants, with an intense commercial and migratory movement, is experiencing a socioeconomic pandemic that overflows insecurity and anxiety among its inhabitants. The insecurity of Guayaquil has increased in the last two years due to arms trafficking and how they reach the streets. Arms trafficking is the second most serious market after drug trafficking”, commented the expert.
He added that the situation in prisons, homicides, insecurity and drug trafficking are directly connected to transnational organized crime, which is fighting in the streets for a very important commercial drug niche, which is micro-trafficking.
“Although Guayaquil is a collateral victim of these confrontations, it must assume responsibility with immediate measures and laws that allow the activation of inter-institutional legal mechanisms to support the forces of order and national security,” he suggested.
This report also worries the tourist and business association. Lissette Vélez, president of the Ecuadorian MICE Association and an expert in business tourism, said that this ranking it can have serious consequences on how the world sees us as a country of destination.
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But he stressed that everything depends on how you communicate with the embassies and determine safe areas, because countries like Mexico, which is number 1 on the list of dangerous cities (it has thirteen on the list), is the first in Latin America that the vacation tourists.
In fact, according to the World Tourism Organization, it is among the six most visited countries.
“Officials must sit down with the ambassadors of the United States, England and other countries to effectively communicate what is happening, to make it clear that the murders are selective, because we know that tourists are not going to go to Guasmo to learn, So don’t consider the whole city as dangerous. We need safe areas to be determined in Guayaquil, which is a city that enters the country, so as not to affect tourism in other areas,” she recommended.
Andrés Solano, a foreign businessman who has lived in Guayaquil for 20 years, explained that this list not only affects tourism or the perception of security of those who live here. He thinks that in terms of business it is deadly because nobody wants to invest in a place where drug trafficking rules.
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The foreigner even spoke of large multinational companies that have factories here and from which gangs have come to ask for money in exchange for not contaminating their containers with drugs.
“For a multinational, paying $100,000 a month is nothing, but soon it will stop operating in Ecuador. It is better for him to go to Costa Rica or Peru and take the raw materials there”, he said.
Solano believes that Ecuador is very small and that important businesses are in the hands of a few who had the vision and the money to develop years ago.
And the drug has become a business that many can take advantage of and earn a lot of money; from the one that sells in the streets to the one that transports large loads, the one that informs which ship is going to which destination, the one that makes the double bottom of the containers. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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.
