QUITO: Five inmates died Monday when rival gangs clashed in a prison in Ecuador's capital Quito, which has so far avoided many of the violent jail clashes which have left hundreds dead.
Quito police commander General Victor Herrera told journalists that the five murdered prisoners had suffered “knife wounds,“ while another five were injured and in an “unstable condition.”
Police managed to resume control of the prison, Pichincha No. 1, after the late afternoon “dispute between gangs,“ said Herrera. The jail is home to 1,300 male inmates.
Quito had until now escaped the violent gang battles -- a spillover from a drug war in the country -- which have left around 400 inmates dead since February 2021.
Many have been beheaded or burned in the clashes in overcrowded prisons, where corruption allows inmates to get their hands on guns and explosives.
Monday's prison clash comes almost a week after a wave of violence in the port city of Guayaquil left eight people dead, including five police officers and two inmates.
Officials say the attacks were a response by organized crime to an ongoing mass transfer of inmates from the infamous Guayas 1 prison in Guayaquil to other jails controlled by different gangs.
Earlier on Monday, the prisons administration body SNAI reported shots fired at Guayas 1, however there were no victims.
President Guillermo Lasso has responded to the attacks by declaring a state of emergency and night-time curfew in the provinces of Guayas, Esmeraldas, and Santa Domingo de los Tsachilas.
He also ordered the deployment of troops to the three provinces, home to a third of Ecuador's 18 million inhabitants.
Once a relatively peaceful neighbor of major cocaine producers Colombia and Peru, Ecuador has gone from being a drug transit route to a vital distribution center wracked by drug violence.
Authorities blame the wave of violent crime on rival gangs with ties to Mexican cartels.
The murder rate in Ecuador nearly doubled in 2021 to 14 per 100,000 inhabitants, and reached 18 per 100,000 between January and October this year, according to official data. - AFP
