Hostages freed, prisons under control: the situation is normalizing in Ecuador

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: ECUADOREAN ARMED FORCES / AFP 10:45 a.m., January 15, 2024

Ecuador's army and police on Sunday regained control of several prisons and freed more than 200 prison officials held hostage by mutineers, bringing the country back to some normalcy after a week of chaos. Against the backdrop of an ongoing "war" in recent days between criminal gangs linked to drug trafficking and security forces, the army has released images showing hundreds of detainees lined up with their hands on their heads, shirtless or in their underwear, held at gunpoint by soldiers.

Strictly supervised by the soldiers, the prisoners had to sing the national anthem, in tight rows at the foot of the Ecuadorian flag. According to General Pablo Velasco, "control has been re-established in six detention centers," and an operation is "underway" in a final prison in the southern province of Cotopaxi. "(There was not) an agreement ... the military intervention was after the release" of the hostages, Velasco said.

>> ALSO READ – Escapes, hostage-taking, scenes of chaos... Everything you need to know about the crisis in Ecuador

Release of 136 guards and other officials taken hostage

The nationwide operation was launched hours after it was announced that 136 guards and other officials had been taken hostage by the mutineers. The prison administration (SNAI) had announced that "the joint action of the police and the army has led to the release of all the hostages who were held in different prisons in the country". But according to the latest statement on Sunday evening, the new toll of released prisoners stands at 201.

President Daniel Noboa welcomed the "release" of the hostages and said he would "continue to work to restore peace". Police footage showed the guards, many of them women, crying, exhausted and supported by their colleagues shortly after their release. "Thank God, we all did well. We are in good health," the freed hostages from Cotopaxi said in another video on social media, waving an Ecuadorian flag.

Estamos tomando el control de las cárceles del país Felicitaciones a las Fuerzas

Armadas y la Policía Nacional. Seguimos trabajando para restaurar la paz para todos los ecuatorianos pic.twitter.com/4MX0FQooLd

— Daniel Noboa Azin (@DanielNoboaOk) January 14, 2024

For the past week, hostages, with knives to their throats or guns to their heads, have been calling on the authorities for help and restraint in videos posted on social media. At least two of them, one of whom was hanged, were executed by the mutineers, according to horrific images. The SNAI on Saturday reported the death of a guard during clashes with detainees in the southwestern province of El Oro, bordering Peru, bringing the overall death toll of a week of terror to 19, including civilians, prison guards, police and prisoners, according to the latest official toll.

Back to normal

Throughout the hostage-taking, the prison administration has provided very few details, with security forces confronting mutinous prisoners in some penitentiaries and negotiating in others. About 40 prison officials were released on Saturday, with authorities citing mediation by the Catholic Church.

The announcement of the January 7 escape from the Guayaquil compound of feared Choneros gang leader Adolfo Macias, alias "Fito," sparked a wave of mutinies involving hostage-taking in at least five prisons, attacks on security forces and other acts aimed at spreading terror. President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency and ordered the army to neutralize the criminal gangs, which are now considered "terrorists".

>> ALSO READ – Drug trafficking, assassinations... Who is Fito, the man behind Ecuador's security crisis?

22,400 military personnel deployed

More than 22,400 military personnel have been deployed, with land, air and sea patrols, while a curfew has been imposed. After a wave of panic across Ecuador caused by Tuesday's live attack on the studios of a public television station in Guayaquil, the epicentre of drug violence, the situation has returned to relative normality.

This is the case, during the day, in Guayaquil as well as in Quito, the capital, even if Ecuadorians quickly return to their homes to safety at the end of the afternoon. Once a haven of peace, Ecuador has in recent years become the shipping centre for cocaine produced in neighbouring Colombia and Peru. Drug traffickers have gradually imposed their law in this country, which has been given over to the violence of criminal gangs. Ecuador's prisons, overcrowded and sliced by gangs, are regularly the scene of massacres between these rival gangs: Choneros (those in Chone, a town in western Ecuador), Tiguerones (Tigers), Lobos (Wolves) and Aguilas (Eagles).

Daniel Noboa, 36, was elected last November as the youngest president in Ecuador's history on a promise to restore security. His predecessor, the conservative Guillermo Lasso, has been confronted with several bouts of violence in prisons and has decreed a state of emergency more than once, without managing to regain control of the situation and more generally to stem the drug trafficking, linked to corruption, which plagues the country.