Quito (EFE).- The president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, arrived this Friday in the city of Guayaquil to visit the facilities of the TC Televisión channel, which last Tuesday was assaulted by a heavily armed commando during a live broadcast and took hostages to the workers of the environment.
Noboa arrived at the studios of the television medium that, after the armed incursion, was off the air for about a day after the events framed within a day of terror attributed to organized crime gangs that included attacks with explosions, kidnapping and murder. of police and prison riots with nearly 180 officials detained.
The situation led Noboa to declare the “internal armed conflict” at the national level, a measure with which he classified the organized crime mafias as terrorist groups, now converted into “military objectives to be neutralized” within a climate of tension and militarization of various sectors of the country’s cities.
Noboa is present on the television channel
The president, who assumed power last November, greeted the staff of the television station and the members of the journalistic editorial team before touring the studios where the hooded and armed assailants arrived.
Noboa observed the bullet holes left in the doors and walls in the armed men’s attempt to break through and take over the facilities of the television station, located in a busy area of the port city of Guayaquil.
The president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, visits the facilities of the TC Televisión channel, scene of the assault by a heavily armed commando during a live broadcast and took the media’s workers hostage, today, in Guayaquil (Ecuador). EFE/ Carlos Durán Araújo
He was also able to talk with some of the journalists and members of the technical team who were present at that moment that has been marked for that editorial office.
The assault ended without fatalities, after a tense negotiation of several hours with the forces of order until the attackers finally surrendered to the authorities, who arrested thirteen of them, among whom there is a man of Venezuelan nationality and two minors between 15 and 17 years old.
The eleven adults were remanded in provisional prison, charged by the Prosecutor’s Office with the crime of terrorism, as were the two minors, who were held in a detention center for minors.
The situation in prisons
One of the seven prison riots that are registered simultaneously in Ecuador after the wave of attacks and incidents attributed to organized crime managed to be controlled during the early hours of this Friday, with the death of one prisoner, while 170 remain in the other six. officials taken hostage.
The incidents in the Machala prison, in the southern province of El Oro, bordering Peru, are “controlled thanks to joint work with the Armed Forces,” said this Friday the National Service for Comprehensive Attention to Adult Persons Deprived of Liberty. Adolescent Offenders (SNAI), the State penitentiary agency.
Late on Thursday, a group of inmates from this prison dumped the lifeless body of another inmate, and the relevant investigations are underway to determine the cause of death, the SNAI indicated.
A column of smoke rises from a prison in Ecuador, in a file photograph. EFE/ Jonathan Miranda
The Armed Forces continue outside the Machala prison to solve any problem that may arise, indicated the SNAI.
According to this information, riots have persisted since Tuesday in the prisons of the southern cities of Loja, Azogues and Cuenca, the central Latacunga and Ambato and the northern Esmeraldas, bordering Colombia.
In these prisons there are a total of 170 officials held by the prisoners, after the release of eight of them was achieved in the last hours, through various efforts where the Church has even intervened, as in the case of Esmeraldas.
Among the staff still held are 155 prison guards and 15 members of prison administrative staff.
Ecuador, facing a rise in violence
The armed invasion of the TC Television facilities was the most high-profile and traumatic episode of the escalation of violence experienced this week in Ecuador and attributed to organized crime groups, mainly dedicated to drug trafficking.
The events occurred when the Government of President Daniel Noboa was preparing to implement its plan to regain control of Ecuadorian prisons, many of them internally dominated by these criminal groups, whose rivalries have left more than 450 prisoners murdered since 2020 in a series of prison massacres.
This violence has also moved to the streets to make Ecuador one of the most violent countries in the world with 45 intentional homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023, and after this week’s episodes the Government has declared the “internal armed conflict” and has classified these gangs as terrorist groups and military objectives.
2024-01-13 04:08:05
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