The president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, has assured Thursday that he has kept his word to apply strict measures against the recent episodes of violence registered in the country’s largest prison by transferring hundreds of inmates.
«We said that our hand would not tremble and it did not tremble. We kept the strategy of transferring the leaders to the millimeter», said the Ecuadorian president evaluating the operations carried out in the last hours by the security forces to take control of the Litoral Prison, in Guayaquil, as reported by ‘El Universo’.
In an operation carried out by the National Police, the Army and the National Service of Integral Attention to Adults Deprived of Liberty and Adolescent Offenders (SNAI), hundreds of prisoners have been subdued in the courtyards of the conflictive pavilion and some others had been transferred, according to a press release issued by the Presidency of Ecuador.
«This government will not bow down to narco-terrorists: in this country they will not impose their will. We are here to confront them and protect the 18 million Ecuadorians who deserve to live in peace. May God bless Ecuador,» said Lasso, as reported by the newspaper.
A few hours earlier, after the meeting of the Public and State Security Council (Cosepe), the Secretary of Public Security, Diego Ordóñez, had informed that the Government’s decision was to «fight the threat of drug trafficking and organized crime and to recover the internal control of the prisons», after new incidents were registered in the prison of Guayaquil.
During the operation, in which 700 police and 470 military personnel took part, nine policemen and three soldiers were injured. Hours earlier, there had been two deaths and six injured inmates in a new confrontation in the Litoral Penitentiary.
On November 1, Guillermo Lasso decreed a state of emergency in the provinces of Guayas and Esmeraldas, thus allowing the decreeing of a curfew and requesting the help of the Army in joint operations with the National Police.
Ecuador has been for several days the scene of a series of violent acts in the provinces of Guayas and Esmeraldas, both in the north, which have resulted in the death of at least five policemen and for which more than 50 suspects have already been arrested.
