The authorities of Ecuador have confirmed Thursday the death of the director of the El Inca penitentiary, Santiago Loza Moscoso, victim of «a deadly attack» in the country’s capital, Quito.
This has been confirmed by the National Service of Integral Attention to Adults Deprived of Liberty (SNAI), which has issued a statement in which «repudiates» what happened and has conveyed its condolences to Loza Moscoso’s colleagues and relatives.
«We call on the entities in charge of the investigations to determine the causes and to find those responsible for this attack that mourns the prison system of Ecuador,» said the agency.
Sources from the National Directorate of Violent Deaths confirmed that the perpetrators of the attack were traveling on a motorcycle when one of them opened fire on the car in which Loza Moscoso was traveling, who died inside the vehicle.
The first information suggests that the director of the El Inca prison was on his way to work when he was attacked, as reported by the Ecuadorian newspaper ‘El Comercio’.
Ecuador is the scene of notorious insecurity in the prison system, which in the last two years has already left more than a dozen massacres with more than 400 deaths. Clashes between gangs fighting for control of drug trafficking are one of the reasons for this situation.
A few months ago, the government decreed a state of emergency in the prison system as a whole, although the measure does not seem to have had the effect that President Guillermo Lasso had hoped for. In addition, other measures have been implemented inside the prisons, such as the census of prisoners or artificial intelligence systems.
