On Tuesday, Ecuador’s Comprehensive Care Service for Adults Deprived of Liberty (SNAI) informed that a drug-trafficking gang clash in Esmeraldas City prison left three convicts dead.
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“We lament the prisoners’ death and assure that the Attorney General’s Office will coordinate the necessary actions to find out this crime’s material and intellectual authors as soon as possible,” the SANI stated.
In 2021, over 300 Ecuadoran prisoners died due to clashes among gangs, which seek to gain control of prisons and free their leaders to continue carrying out drug trafficking activities. These riots were supported by criminal networks operating from outside the prisons.
To counteract this situation, President Guillermo Lasso implemented "states of exception" for the national prison system, a strategy that allowed Army and Police officers to safeguard the prisons from inside the precincts.
Lasso suspended this policy in Dec. 2021, when the number of confrontations and murders inside prisons decreased considerably. Since then, the Police and military personnel has remained outside the centers following the standard regulations.
On Tuesday, Lasso and his cabinet held a special meeting to monitor the development of the "Ecuador Rescue Plan, "which seeks to reinforce security in prisons.
“Prisons need to be less overcrowded, and its guards shall respect the fundamental rights of convicts. Only this way we will be able to eliminate structural violence from our national prison system,” Ecuadorian researcher and Alliance against Prisons activist Silvana Tapia stated.