Ecuador: Prison Riot Death Toll Climbs to 31

Facts

• On Wednesday, Ecuador's police said they had recovered 11 bodies and 29 body parts as part of an ongoing forensic effort at the Penitenciaria del Litoral prison to determine the official death toll. The news comes after clashes occurred between rival gangs in the prison over the weekend.¹
• Authorities have confirmed that 31 inmates were killed at the overcrowded facility in the port city of Guayaquil, with officers seizing nine rifles, a grenade launcher, four pistols, two revolvers, and a thousand rounds of ammunition.²
• After Pres. Guillermo Lasso declared a state of emergency in Ecuador's prisons on Tuesday, at least 1.5K police officers and 1.2K soldiers were deployed to retake control of El Litoral prison.³
• Unrest also spread to the province of Esmeraldas, where vehicles were set ablaze, businesses were threatened with bombing, and prison rioters held 17 corrections officials hostage until Wednesday.⁴
• Lasso also suspended people's rights to assembly and free movement, and set a night curfew in two provinces, including Manabí, where the mayor of the city of Manta was killed in a shooting Sunday.⁵
• Prison riots have plagued Ecuador since 2021, killing hundreds of inmates. The federal government alleges drug gangs have been continuously fighting for territory and control.⁶

Sources: ¹Al Jazeera, ²CBS, ³BBC News, ⁴France 24, ⁵Independent, and ⁶Reuters.

Narratives

• Right narrative, as provided by Cuenca High Life. Ecuador's Constitutional Court has repeatedly undermined Pres. Guillermo Lasso's ability to curb prison violence. From barring the military from operating in prisons to enabling the early release of certain prisoners and rulings preventing guards from carrying weapons, the country's so-called judicial system has played a direct role in this ongoing violence.
• Left narrative, as provided by The Cuenca Dispatch. While gangs play a fundamental role in prison violence in Ecuador, so does state violence, corruption, overcrowding, and lack of essential services, including wastewater treatment, medical attention, and legal advice. Without reforms to deal with these structural causes of prison violence, penitentiaries will continue operating as schools of criminality that offer their inmates neither rehabilitation nor reintegration.