Ecuador: 3 Detained After Homemade Bomb Detonated in Esmeraldas, No Deaths Reported

A home-made explosive device was detonated on Friday at 2:30 a.m. in Ecuador, near a naval base. This is the second bombing in Ecuador’s northernmost coastal province of Esmeraldas, which has seen an increase in drug-related violence recently.

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On Twitter, Ecuador’s Interior Ministry informed there were no deaths or grave injuries, and damage to the building is minor. They also announced the detention of three individuals. “At this moment there are three detained. We are taking planned and articulated actions, and in the next hours we will give a press conference with detailed information.”

On January 27 a car bomb went off in a Police Station in San Lorenzo, Esmeraldas causing the injuries to 28 people, between police officers and civilians. Ecuador deemed the bombing as a “terrorist attack,” and it linked to drug dealing networks hit by state security forces.  

Although the explosive devices are of a different fabrication, Cesar Navas, Interior Minister explained in an interview “we can neither assert nor dismiss that this event is related to what happened in #SanLorenzo.”

Attack in #Borbon - #Esmeraldas. Images of what occurred this early morning in the Naval base, there are no injured and until now there are 3 detained. 

He later provided a hypothesis of the motives behind the detonation, “with these acts they seek to frighten us because of our work against organized crime,” Navas said.   

The towns of Eloy Alfaro and San Lorenzo, on the border with Colombia, have been in a state of emergency for two months and the Ecuadorean military are currently managing security in the province while both the police and the military are investigating transnational criminal groups that Vice Minister of Defense, Felipe Vega, believes “want to operate with impunity.”