A total of 68 inmates died and 12 others were injured in a new massacre registered in the penitentiary of the city of Guayaquil, located in the southwest of Ecuador, as reported this Saturday by the governor of Guayas, Pablo Arosemena.
He assured that last night he traveled with other officials to the penitentiary and they confirmed “very intense bullet crossing, and very close to the entrance door to the penitentiary, detonations, a situation of savagery“.
The Police used tear gas to calm the situation, while the inmates who tried to enter Pavilion 2 fired and tried to make a hole in the wall, and also they burned mattresses generating toxic smoke seeking to intoxicate. “According to Arosemena, the entrance of the National Police at dawn” allowed to save lives and that it is not an even more regrettable circumstance. “
The general commander of the Police, Tannya Varela, stressed that the events are due to a dispute over the territories of criminal gangs inside the penitentiary center, where some pavilions are without their leaders “because in a way that surprises all citizens they have been released after having served 60% of the sentence.”
That power vacuum generated yesterday’s dispute “of a way more violent than normal“He said. According to Varela, the use of drones made it possible to detect that there were prisoners from about three pavilions” roaming freely throughout the prison armed and with explosives.
The Police carried out a sweep throughout the penitentiary center so that the inmates return to their pavilions and protected number 2. “This which has happened could possibly generate other actions, taking into consideration” that there is an absence of ringleaders“, he warned before detailing that ten inmates died in pavilion 2 and the rest in” an area called transitory. “
“I understand – he said – that pavilion 3 is the one that attacked 2 and pavilions 7, 8 and 9 were the ones that entered this transitory area where we have the highest number of deaths.” In the penitentiary where this same year another massacre took place that ended the life of 118 inmates, there are 8,000 prisoners distributed in twelve wards of between 700 and 800 people each.
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.
