A total of 50 prison officers and seven police officers have been taken hostage by inmates of several different prisons in Ecuador. This is stated by the country’s Minister of the Interior, Juan Zapata. – We are concerned about the safety of our service personnel, Zapata said at a press conference in the capital Quito on Thursday. The interior minister first said the hostages were taken in a prison in the city of Cuenca. Later, SNAI, the public body responsible for Ecuador’s prisons, said that it concerned six different prisons, reports AFP. This photo was taken in connection with a “security operation” in a prison in Guayaquil following the murder of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio on 10 August this year. Photo: – / AFP The prisons in Ecuador are, like those in the rest of Latin America, overcrowded. Many are also controlled by criminal gangs, and it is not unusual for bloody prison riots in which many are killed. Various theories as to why they were captured The hostage situation began the day after hundreds of soldiers and police officers carried out a raid. They were looking for weapons, ammunition and explosives in one of the country’s largest prisons in the city of Latacunga. It is located in the Andes in the south of the country. Interior Minister Juan Zapata briefed on the hostage situation on Thursday. Photo: HANDOUT / AFP The prison agency SNAI said earlier on Thursday that the hostage-taking is revenge for that action. But later the authorities said it was a protest against the transfer of inmates to other prisons. Ecuador new hub for drug trafficking Until a few years ago, Ecuador was a peaceful country between Colombia and Peru, the world’s two biggest cocaine producers. But recently, Ecuador has also become a hub for drug trafficking and related violence. On 25 August, Spanish authorities seized 9,436 kilograms of cocaine hidden in a container of bananas. Photo: JORGE GUERRERO / AFP During the first half of the year, the country experienced 3,568 violent deaths, writes France 24. This is a sharp increase from 2,042 violent deaths in the same period last year. Car bombs against the correctional service On the night of Thursday, there were also two car bombs aimed at SNAI. President Guillermo Lasso said they may have been launched in response to the authorities’ operation in the prisons this week. At least six people were arrested and a building in Quito was damaged. All have previously been in the police spotlight for extortion, robbery and murder. – Three of them were arrested 15 days ago for car theft as well as kidnapping and extortion, said the head of the narcotics police, General Pablo Ramirez.
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Almost sixty prison employees in Ecuador captured by inmates – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
