Description: Ecuador’s National Service for Comprehensive Attention to Persons Deprived of Liberty (SNAI) has announced that more than 27 people were killed in a prison riot in the city of Machala, the capital of Ecuador’s El Oro province. In the issued statement, SNAI also claimed that the prisoners died from immediate suffixation due to hanging while elite special forces were deployed in the prison in Machala to restore order. The deadly riot follows a troubling pattern of gang violence in Ecuador, which is in a state of emergency since 2024, where 17 people were killed in the city of Esmeraldas and additional 14 people in the Machala prison this year in Sep. President Daniel Noboa was the target of an assassination attempt last month with anti – government protests concerning the restricted diesel subsidies contributing towards the general state of instability in the country.
Impact: Ecuador’s multi – layered systemic crisis continues to expand with the gang wars taking the primary position on the threat level. The country’s military has been regularly deployed on the streets and used as police force to counter the gang violence while the prisons and detention centers have become the most likely flashpoints for the surging gang violence. Noboa since being elected earlier this year has faced severe adversity in tackling the country’s gang crisis which was further aggravated with the protests by Ecuador’s indigenous people last month regarding the restricted diesel subsidies. The country has been engulfed by the drug trafficking gangs which are vying for control of key shipment and trade routes with the government continuously failing to address the mounting crisis. Instability would persist in the long – term since Noboa’s government hasn’t presented any concrete measures in countering the issues with the gang violence in the country.