The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) announced this Monday that it will open an office in Ecuador to implement a plan to prevent and combat organized crime, mainly dedicated to drug trafficking. cocainewhich is attributed to the rise of violence and homicides in the country.
The executive director of the UNODC, the Egyptian Ghada Waly, announced the opening of the office after a meeting in Quito with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility, Gabriela Sommerfeld.
In a statement to journalists, Waly explained that the office in Ecuadorian territory will have personnel in both Quito and Guayaquil, one of the epicenters of the crisis of insecurity and violence, as Ecuador’s largest port is located there, which drug trafficking mafias have turned into one of the main exit doors from South America for cocaine arriving in Europe.
“In recent months, the threat posed by gangs and criminal groups in Ecuador has intensified sharply and alarmingly, undermining peace and prosperity,” said Waly.
«The illicit drug trade, and in particular cocaine trafficking, is expanding globally and in the region, and this has triggered criminal competition and converged with other organized crimes, unleashing violence in the streets and prisons of Ecuador,” he added.
The executive director of the UNODC indicated that “the consequences have been deadly for Ecuadorians” and recalled that “the rate of homicides in the country in 2023 (about 45 per 100,000 inhabitants) was six times higher than five years ago, and at least 80% of homicides are attributed to organized crime«.
This has placed Ecuador among the countries more violent of Latin America, which led to the president Daniel Noboa to declare since the beginning of the year the ‘internal armed conflict’ against organized crime gangs, which it began to classify as terrorist groups and non-state belligerent actors.
Through a state of exception, he took actions such as militarizing the prisons, until then controlled mostly by criminal gangs and where since 2020 more than 500 prisoners have been murdered, many of them in a series of prison massacres due to disputes between rival groups. .
A plan structured in six axes
For his part, Sommerfeld explained that the ‘UNODC-Ecuador Commitment Plan’, which was presented last March in Vienna, within the framework of the high-level segment of the sixty-seventh session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, is structured in six axes.
Among the lines of action is the prevention and fight against corruption associated with organized crime in the port system, the reinforcement of prison controls to confront organized crime in the prison system and the strengthening of Eucador’s capacity to prevent and combat money laundering and illicit financial flows.
Also the reinforcement of cross-border and maritime river cooperation, the resilience of Ecuadorian criminal justice institutions and the strengthening of regional and international cooperation to prevent and combat crime. transnational organized crime.
For this last area, Sommerfeld anticipated that a dialogue with potential cooperating countries accredited in the country is planned to be organized in Quito.
“Now that we will have an Unodc office in Ecuador, we will strengthen our relationships and work to achieve national objectives in terms of security and strengthening the rule of law,” considered the chancellor.
In that sense, Waly indicated that this UN agency “already has a solid alliance with Ecuador,” and recalled that in 2023 it participated in the organization of 20 training to train more than 400 officials in anti-corruption measures, human trafficking, environmental crimes and the proper disposal of controlled substances.
«And we work with the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) and UN Women on the prevention of violence and the participation of young people in delinquency in Guayaquil. But Ecuador faces a new level of challenges, which require a new level of support,” he warned. EFE
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