2023-09-08 13:49:00
Quito, Ecuador | Four dead, including an 11-year-old boy, and six wounded left a gunshot attack on Thursday in the south of Guayaquil, one of the most violent cities hit by drug trafficking in Ecuador, police reported.
Among the injured there are also two girls, aged seven and five, police colonel Marcelo Castillo told the press.
Located between Colombia and Peru, the largest cocaine producers, Ecuador went from being an oasis of peace to a disputed territory by gangs linked to drug trafficking.
Shootings, homicides, kidnappings and extortions are multiplying.
According to Castillo, the attack this Thursday was the product of “retaliation among criminal groups because they come with viciousness, they practically shoot at point blank range,” Castillo said.
The gunmen arrived in cars and motorcycles and opened fire on a group of people who were repairing motorcycles outside a workshop in a poor neighborhood in southern Guayaquil.
Two men and the child died instantly at the scene. The fourth victim died in a hospital.
The attackers fired shots into the air as they fled. Six people were hit by bullets, but their health is stable.
In a cinematic escape, the gunmen abandoned their vehicles by the river and fled in boats.
During the chase, the police managed to arrest one of the attackers who fell from his motorcycle.
According to Castillo, residents crossed “trunks with nails that impeded police work” while they pursued the gunmen.
Clashes and settling of scores between drug gangs are frequent. In June, a clash between gangs in the coastal town of La Concordia (west) left eight dead.
Since May 2021, when President Guillermo Lasso took office, authorities have seized 500 tons of drugs.
Seizures have grown alongside the violence. Analysts estimate that Ecuador will close 2023 with a rate of up to 40 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.
Between 2018 and 2022, the homicide rate in Ecuador quadrupled, going from 6 to 26 per 100,000 inhabitants.
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