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Guayakill: Ecuadoran port city torn apart by gangs

Photo: Marcos Pin / AFP

| By AFP | Héctor Velasco and Karla Pesantes |

Entire neighborhoods run by gangs, prison bloodbaths and police overwhelmed by criminal firepower: Drug trafficking has transformed the Ecuadoran city of Guayaquil into a den of violence.

The port city of 2.8 million people, which on Saturday hosts the final of the Copa Libertadores competition, has witnessed scenes of incredible barbarity in recent years.

Hundreds of inmates have been killed — many beheaded or incinerated — in numerous prison battles, and civilians have increasingly gotten caught up in the gang war rocking the city rebaptized “Guayakill” by inhabitants.

So far this year, the commercial heart of Ecuador has seen 1 200 murders — 60 percent more than in 2021 according to official data.

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Since last year, almost 400 inmates have died in several cities, most of them in Guayaquil, which has also been hit by a spate of car bombs and shocking scenes of bodies dangling from bridges.

And despite the government declaring states of emergency to allow for troop deployment and boosting police numbers in Guayaquil by over 1 000 to nearly 10 000, some fear it is a losing battle.

“We used to confront small arms… revolvers. But now on the streets we face American (automatic) rifles, grenades, explosive devices,” police forensics official Luis Alfonso Merino told AFP.

“The violence has grown enormously.”

Rifles, grenades

Once a relatively peaceful neighbor of major cocaine producers Colombia and Peru, Ecuador was long merely part of the drug transit route.

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But recently, traffickers with suspected links to Mexican cartels such as Sinaloa, the Gulf Clan and Los Zetas have been expanding their domestic presence — fighting over the fast-growing local market and access to the port of Guayaquil for exports to Europe and the United States.

The city’s prisons, where gangs also battle it out for supremacy, are emblematic of the fast-declining security situation.

In one of the deadliest riots in Latin American history, 122 people were slaughtered at the infamous Guayas 1 penitentiary in September last year in an hours-long rampage by inmates wielding guns, machetes and explosives.

“The State does not govern the prisons,” Billy Navarrete of the CDH human rights NGO told AFP.

Instead, they are under the control of “criminal organizations with the complicity of law enforcement agents who allow, tolerate and enrich themselves with arms trafficking,” he said.

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The government has announced it was stepping up enforcement. In 2021, it reported a record haul of 210 tons of drugs.

So far this year, the figure stands at 160 tons.

In a 2019 report, Ecuadoran intelligence said there were at least 26 criminal gangs fighting for control of the lucrative drug market, but officials have since said the number is likely higher. 

And according to operations chief Major Robinson Sanchez in Guayaquil, the gangs are “better armed than the police.”

Wolves vs Eagles

At the entrance to Socio Vivienda II, an impoverished housing development and one of the most dangerous places in Guayaquil, police and soldiers stand guard.

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Two dozen others in black uniforms, bulletproof vests and balaclavas patrol the narrow streets on motorcycles.

Some 24 000 people live in Socio Vivienda’s three sectors in the crossfire of the gang war that has resulted in several public shootouts since 2019 and forced school closures in recent weeks.

The gangs go by names such as Lobos (Wolves) and Tiguerones. The Aguilas (Eagles) are based higher up on the hill.

When the groups first started going head to head, the community itself erected metal gates at the ends of streets to prevent gang members from moving freely about.

But police removed these for ease of access, and now “the bullets zoom from one end to the other,” said a community leader, 45, who spoke on condition of anonymity in an atmosphere of fear.

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‘Zombies’ and sentinels

Patrolling officers stop at a house in Socio Vivienda and enter by force.

They find no drugs, only three youngsters with “Tigueron” tattooed onto their arms. It is not enough to detain them.

The gangs use children as young as 10 as sentinels or informants, residents and police say. 

As they “rise” in the organization, they earn the right to get tattooed — but not without having committed a crime. 

On the streets, it is common to see doped-up consumers of “H” — a heroin residue sold for 25 cents per gram. They are known locally as “zombies.”

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The community leader told AFP that luxury vehicles moved in and out freely, transporting drugs right under the noses of police.

And as fearful families leave the neighborhood, gang members immediately “move in” to their homes, he added.

So far this year in Socio Vivienda II alone, records show 252 killings, up from 66 in 2021.

On the weekend preceding Saturday’s Libertadores clash between Brazilian teams Flamengo and Athletico Paranaense, 21 murders were reported in Guayaquil.

Some 50 000 foreign fans are expected to turn out for Saturday’s final.

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International

A magnitude 6 earthquake shakes the province of Esmeraldas in Ecuador, bordering Colombia

A magnitude 6 earthquake was recorded this Friday in the coastal province of Esmeraldas, bordering Colombia, causing damage to several infrastructures and leaving, so far, 20 people injured.

According to the Geophysical Institute of the National Polytechnic School, the earthquake occurred at 06:44 local time (11:44 GMT) at 1.03 degrees south latitude and 79.69 degrees west longitude.

According to the source, the tremor occurred at a depth of 30 kilometers and 9.31 kilometers from Esmeraldas, capital of the homonymous province.

According to the National Secretariat of Risk Management (SNGR), the affected people had head injuries and bruises.

While the SNGR continues with the verification of affectations, it indicated that 80% of the electricity service and 80% of the telecommunications that were affected, are gradually restored.

Among the affected public buildings are the ECU 911 due to a fall of masonry; the Vargas Torres University, which has cracks; the Los Militares building where the front collapsed and the Prefecture building, among others.

The SNGR reported that the earthquake was felt with strong intensity in seven municipalities of the province of Esmeraldas and moderately in the provinces of Guayas and Manabí, while mildly in Carchi, Cotopaxi, Imbabura, Los Ríos, Pichincha, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas and Tungurahua.

About twenty minutes after the earthquake in Esmeraldas, one of magnitude 4.1 was reported in the coastal province of Guayas, located in the southeast of the country, without damage or victims having been reported so far.

The President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, ordered the displacement of all his ministers to Esmeraldas, in order to coordinate actions after the magnitude 6 earthquake recorded this Friday.

“I have arranged for the immediate deployment of all ministers in the province of Esmeraldas to coordinate the installation of shelters, delivery of humanitarian aid kits and assistance in everything our people need,” Noboa wrote on his social network account X.

The province of Esmeraldas was one of the most affected by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake recorded on April 16, 2016, which left more than 670 dead, thousands affected, as well as millions of material losses.

This earthquake also hit the province of Manabí, located, like Esmeraldas, on the coast of the Andean country, but also affected other areas and was felt strongly, even in the Ecuadorian capital.

Ecuador is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire or Belt, which concentrates some of the most important subduction areas (sinking of tectonic plates) in the world and is the scene of strong seismic activity.

In addition to Ecuador, the Horseshoe-shaped Belt comprises a large number of countries such as Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, the United States and Canada.

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International

Preparations for Pope Francis’ funeral, in figures

The funeral of Pope Francis this Saturday, the first of a reigning pontiff for two decades, is an event that moves dizzying figures and will require the full mobilization of Italian authorities and volunteers.

These are some of the figures that draw what can be expected tomorrow for a historic day:

The Italian Ministry of the Interior has calculated that 200,000 faithful will attend the funeral of Francis. For the next conclave – with a date yet to be defined – and the election of the new pope, that figure amounts to 250,000.

The funeral procession that will move the remains of the late pope from St. Peter’s Vatican to the Basilica of Santa María la Mayor, where Francis arranged to be buried in a simple tomb.

3,000 volunteers will mobilize the Italian Civil Protection, responsible for the management of the preparations. There will be 55 health teams distributed throughout the funeral procession between San Pedro del Vaticano and the basilica de Santa María la Mayor, in addition to 11 advanced medical posts and 52 additional ambulances that will join the existing fleet.

17 degrees and a radiant sun are expected at 10:00 (08.00 GMT) on Saturday, the start time of the funeral, although the thermometer could reach 24 degrees throughout the day.

The state group Ferrovie dello Stato makes 260,000 seats available to those who wish to approach Rome by train. Civil Protection also confirmed that 500 parking spaces for buses and coaches have been reserved for the same day in Rome and its surroundings.

130 international delegations have already confirmed their presence at the event, but it is expected that the final figure may rise to 170. Fifty will be headed by heads of state or government, including a dozen sovereigns.

120,000 arrivals planned in Rome on April 25 and 26, which will translate into about 320,000 overnight stays, according to figures from the Department of Tourism of the Italian capital, which warns that the estimates may be below even those that finally occur. 101,000 of those arrivals will take place in hotels and another 53,000 in “supplementary establishments”.

11,000 soldiers and members of the security forces, not counting the teams of the international delegations, who will ensure that the funeral is held without incident. Police, police officers and traffic officers will join at least 1,500 soldiers.

5 anti-drone bazooas, capable of intercepting the radio frequencies with which these devices are operated, which will reinforce the decreed no-fly zone over the Roman sky.

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International

“A dignified life” for migrants, the plea in Panama in memory of Pope Francis

Catholics who work with some of the 299 migrants deported by the United States to Panama, beg the Government that beyond placing the flag at half-mast for the death of Pope Francis this week, it should pay tribute to him by giving “a dignified life” to the migrants, as the Supreme Pontiff preached.

“Never forget your human dignity,” because “you are not a discard,” the pope wrote last year in a message addressed to the thousands of migrants who had just crossed the dangerous Darién jungle, the natural border between Colombia and Panama, on their way to the United States.

Known by many as “the pope of migrants” for his defense of those who are forced to leave their land in search of better living conditions, he himself recalled then that he was “son of migrants who went out in search of a better future,” and that “there were times when they were left with nothing, until they went hungry; with empty hands, but their hearts full of hope.”

Therefore, members of Catholic organizations that are part of the CLAMOR Network (the Latin American and Caribbean Ecclesiastical Network for Migration, Displacement, Refuge and Trafficking in Persons), and who work with dozens of migrants in the Panamanian capital deported by the United States, remember the teachings of Pope Francis.

Elías Cornejo, coordinator of social promotion and attention to the migrant population of the Catholic organization Fe y Alegría, which is part of the Clamor Network, explained to EFE in a migrant shelter that we must “look for alternatives for these people, they cannot be kept in conditions that are not favorable or dignified.”

“In the context of the death of Pope Francis, who was incisive in insisting on humane treatment of migrants, I believe that this country that declares itself mostly Catholic (…) beyond the flag at half-mast, I would also ask the national government to dignify that memory of Pope Francis by giving an answer to many people who (…) have the right to have a dignified life,” Cornejo stressed.

“Give them that, try to find a human, Christian, evangelical answer,” he insisted.

The pilgrimage of this group of migrants through Panama began in mid-February, when a total of 299 arrived on three planes from the United States within the framework of an agreement that turned the Central American nation into a “joup” country for their repatriation.

Coming from extracontinental nations such as China, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Iran, Russia, Pakistan or Nepal, 188 returned to their countries “voluntarily”, according to the latest official information available, and 111 refused to do so, many of them fearing for their lives.

The entire group was first housed in a central hotel in the Panamanian capital, and those who refused to be repatriated to their countries were transferred to a shelter more than 200 kilometers away, near the Darién jungle.

Then, after the decision last March by the Government of Panama to grant them a temporary humanitarian permit for 30 days, extendable up to 90, to find a way out of their situation, they took them back to the capital, although now without any type of logistical support, so the CLAMOR Network occupied that vacuum by first hosting the migrants in a humble hotel in the city, to transfer them days later to one of its shelters.

According to Cornejo, who underlines the support they receive in the shelter of “non-believing people, believing people, Muslim people, people of other religions too,” of the 69 migrants who moved there – families with children continue to stay in a hotel – 47 remain, since they “make their own decisions and move” by their own decision to other places.

“We don’t know where, we have an idea, but we don’t want to keep them or force them to anything, because they are free, they are not people who are imprisoned (…) We don’t want to pressure them, we don’t want to pressure the Government, but we do want to tell them again, ‘please, let’s find a way out of this’. An exit that has to be worthy for the State and for them, for migrants,” he remarked.

At least, he says, from the Foreign Ministry they have guaranteed that they will not deport anyone by force if the new 60-day period ends, an extension that ends in June and that, according to official data shared with EFE, at least 80 migrants have requested.

Two mothers from Asian countries who requested with their children the extension of the “temporary resident permit for humanitarian reasons”, as indicated in the document to which EFE had access, and who asked for anonymity, insisted that returning to their country is not an option, since if they return their “lives are in danger”.

Housed in a humble hotel in the center of the Panamanian capital, on a floor where behind each door there is a family of different nationality, they explain to EFE through a translation application part of their journey to the United States, crossing several countries of America with their minor children, and then their sudden expulsion without knowing the destination, some handcuffed hand and foot.

“When they put me on the plane I felt suffocated. His hands and feet were cold. My heart was beating fast, I had high blood pressure. I told the military,” recalls one of them. There were men and women handcuffed, the children were terrified. They are adults, but children are not, “how can they treat them as criminals?”

Now, they say, they are “afraid” that the day will come when the deadline they were given to stay in Panama will expire. “When this document ends, I don’t know exactly what will happen to us if the United States doesn’t get us out of here.”

“We want to ask Donald Trump to return us to the United States, please,” they begged.

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