Crime Gangs Fingered As Five Die In Ecuador Blast

Crime Gangs Blamed As Five Die In Ecuador Blast
WhatsApp
Facebook
Twitter
Telegram
LinkedIn
Print

No fewer than five people were confirmed dead and 16 others injured following an explosion on Sunday in the port city of Guayaquil in Ecuador, an attack the government blamed on organized crime, officials said.

The President of the country, Guillermo Lasso had declared a state of emergency in the country’s second-largest city of Guayaquil following the report, where eight houses and two cars were destroyed in the blast.

Lasso had also taken Twitter to warn that his year-old government would ‘not allow organized crime to try to control the country.’

The state of emergency will be in force from Sunday in the southwestern coastal city, and will last for 30 days, said security secretary Diego Ordonez at a press conference.

Read Also: Landmine Explosion Kills Eleven In Syria

Interior Minister Patricio Carrillo pointed out that the five dead had been identified and none had a criminal record.

He also said that 17 were wounded in the blast, which he blamed on “organized-crime mercenaries,” long involved in illicit drug traffic.

‘It is a declaration of war against the state,’ Carrillo added on Twitter.

Located between Colombia and Peru, the world’s two largest cocaine producers, Ecuador is facing a drug-fueled crime wave that has produced scenes of horror, including decapitated bodies hanging from bridges.

Africa Daily News, New York reports that tensions between rival drug gangs have reached into Ecuador’s prisons, where clashes and massacres have claimed at least 400 lives since February 2021.

“Either we confront it (organized crime) together, or society will pay an even higher price,” Carrillo said.

Recall that in 2020Ecuador accounted for 6.5 percent of all the cocaine seized in the world, according to the latest United Nations figures.

And last year, the nation of 18 million saw its murder rate — 14 homicides per 100,000 people — soar to nearly twice the 2020 rate.

Africa Daily News, New York

WhatsApp
Facebook
Twitter
Telegram
LinkedIn
Print