At least nine people have died in Esmeraldas, Ecuador, after a shooting at the Artisanal Fishing Port, which also left several injured.

According to the National Police of Ecuador, some 30 armed men They went to the port in two boats and a taxi around 09:30 (local time), and shot inside three premises in the port, before fleeing by sea, according to Ecuavisa.

The authorities have confirmed that There are already three detainees. The Minister of the Interior, Juan Zapata, has confirmed the operation through his Twitter account, where he has expressed: “We will not allow these acts to go unpunished. We fight organized crime with force!”

In an interview with the aforementioned outlet, Zapata explained that, according to preliminary information, the attack was the work of an organized armed group opposed to another that apparently gave protection for fishermen. It has also specified that nearly 200 ballistic evidence of different types of weapons have been found at the crime scene.

For his part, the President of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, has sent his condolences to the families of the victimswho are mostly fishermen and traders, assuring that “for them, we will not rest until we stop them. “We are going to capture them!”

The province of Esmeraldas has been the target of a wave of violence perpetrated by armed crime groups. The president declared a state of emergency in the region in early March to try to combat it.

During the first months of 2023, the province has been the scene of the commission of homicides, assassinations and assassinations, “configuring one of the provinces with the highest levels of insecurity in Ecuador,” according to the Ecuadorian president.