Forty -four detainees were killed on Monday in the Bellavisita penitentiary center – 350 for fourteen months in the country. The authorities attribute these dramas to clashes between criminal bands linked to narcotrafic.
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In Ecuador, the prison tragedy continues: 44 detainees were murdered on Monday May 9, in the Bellavisata prison center (Santo Domingo province) 70 kilometers west of Quito. This new massacre, the sixth since February 2021, brings to more than 350 the number of prisoners murdered in fourteen months.
The violence started around 3 a.m., the authorities said. Taking advantage of chaos, 220 prisoners escaped. At the end of the day, the police claimed to have recapped 115. According to figures provided by the Minister of the Interior, Patricio Carrillo, ten people were also hospitalized “in serious condition”. The balance sheet could still weigh down.
In office for a week, the brand new police director, General Fausto Salinas, said at the end of the morning that “250 police, 200 soldiers and additional reinforcements were on the way”. In the evening, the general confirmed that the public force had regained control of the high security pavilion of the penitentiary center.
bands related to drug trafficking
On an official visit to Israel, President Guillermo Lasso (right) wrote on his Twitter account: “It is the regrettable result of the violence of the gangs.” The Head of State sent his condolences to the families of victims.
The government seems unable to stop these repeated massacres. In September 2021, 119 detainees died in a few hours in a Guayaquil prison. On April 28, it was the prison of El Turi (Azuay region), in the south of the country, which was the scene of violence. Twenty prisoners were then killed.
The authorities attributed Bellavista’s drama to a confrontation between criminal bands linked to drug trafficking. This is the explanation given for each of the massacres. According to General Salinas, the transfer to Bellavista of one of the leaders of Turi prison – known by his alias of Anchundia – would have triggered the clashes between the so -called wolves strip and that known as R7. Built to accommodate a little less than 1,000 prisoners, Bellavista prison hosts more than 1,600.
The authorities once again underlined “the great cruelty which the attackers are demonstrated”. The images circulating on social networks show a heap of bloody bloody body on the tiled ground of the penitentiary center. “The majority of victims, almost 100 % of them, were killed with a knife, and not with firearms,” said Carillo.
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