The president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, denounced an alleged “sabotage” and asked for an investigation into the power cuts generated since last weekend in different parts of the country, in the face of the impossibility of meeting all the national demand.
“We have initiated an investigation for sabotage, because, in certain areas, in certain power plants, there has been sabotage. We are not going to allow that to happen, and they do it miserable the last week before a popular consultation because they know that they had it lost,” he said without mentioning any name of possible perpetrators.
Noboa added that they have declared the country’s energy sector in an “emergency” and said that he has requested the resignation of the Minister of Energy and Mines, Andrea Arrobo, who last Friday had assured that there would be no blackouts in the short term despite pointing out that the largest reservoir in the country was at its minimum level.
“This investigation is not going to rest, we have already submitted (the complaint to) the Prosecutor’s Office,” he said, adding that “every person involved will be considered, not only a traitor to the homeland, but a threat to national security.”
The ruler added: “No one is going to ‘count’ me (tell a story) in the last second that we have to give five hours of blackout to (the province of) Guayas. We are not going to give more blackouts this week,” he said without mentioning whether the decision applies only to Guayas, whose capital is the port city of Guayaquil, or to the whole country.
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“To counteract the actions of these miserable people, we will cover 50% of the electricity sheet of the homes of the month of April,” he said amid the applause of the attendees of a scholarship ceremony.
The ruler opined that there are those who “today want to deceive Ecuador into saying that we are not prepared for this fight, that we are not prepared to face narco-terrorism.”
“But here, forcefully, with courage, we will not give rest to any of these criminals, nor to the politicians, nor to the former officials, nor to the former presidents, nor to any of these terrorists who today want to end the hope of our youth and the Ecuadorian family,” he added.
His adversaries, he said, take advantage of the needs of the most vulnerable “to see if they turn around a popular consultation that Ecuador requested and that Ecuador is going to vote ‘Yes’.”
More than 13 million Ecuadorians are called to the polls next Sunday to vote in a referendum on security, justice and employment issues.
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Among the questions are the possibility of the military permanently supporting the Police in the control of the security of the country and the extradition of Ecuadorians required by the Justice of other countries, among other issues such as the recognition of international arbitrations in any jurisdiction and hourly labor contracts.
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
A 65-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested at a border checkpoint in Croatia after attempting to enter the country in his car with a deceased woman sitting as a passenger, police announced on Tuesday.
The man was detained in a routine check in late November in Gunja, a border area separating Bosnia from Croatia, the police told AFP. Suspicious because they saw “no consciousness or movement” from the passenger, Croatian officers called a doctor, who confirmed the death of the 83-year-old woman, also Austrian, according to her identification.
The woman’s relationship to the suspect is unknown. She had died in Bosnia, and the man intended to repatriate her body to Austria to “avoid the formalities related to transporting a corpse,” according to the police. Croatian media reported that the man was her legal guardian.
Once her death was confirmed, a funeral service took charge of the body.
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Colombian authorities arrested two nationals accused of the illegal trafficking of migrants to the United States and of endangering lives due to the disappearance of a boat with 40 people aboard, U.S. Department of Justice officials reported on Tuesday.
Hernando Manuel de la Cruz Rivera Orjuela, 52, and Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, 40, both Colombian citizens, were arrested on December 13 in Colombia at the request of the United States for their alleged involvement in a “transnational human trafficking operation,” the department said in a statement.
According to the charges, the detainees were transporting migrants to San Andrés Island in the Caribbean, where they would then be taken by boat to Nicaragua. The goal was to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico.
The accused are said to have advised the migrants on how to reach San Andrés Island, where they personally received them, arranged accommodations, and “took them to the boats that transported them to Nicaragua so they could enter the United States illegally,” the statement reads.
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“These defendants put several migrants on the boat that disappeared off the coast of Nicaragua in 2023,” said Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, as cited in the statement.
Both men are “directly and personally responsible for the illicit trafficking of migrants on that vessel,” according to the indictment dated October 23.
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
Two soldiers were killed and five others were injured by the explosion of homemade landmines planted by a criminal group in a mountainous area of the Mexican state of Michoacán (west), the Secretary of Defense reported on Tuesday.
The attack occurred on Monday morning in the municipality of Cotija, a border area between Michoacán and the state of Jalisco, when the military was conducting a reconnaissance mission after receiving information about an armed camp in the area, explained Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla.
“At that moment, an improvised explosive device detonated. Unfortunately, two soldiers lost their lives, and five others were injured,” the military leader detailed. The affected soldiers were airlifted to hospitals in the region by a military helicopter, while the rest of the team continued with the reconnaissance of the area.
Trevilla stated that before the explosion, the military unit had located the dismembered bodies of three people, and upon continuing the mission, they confirmed the camp was abandoned.
Asked about the individuals responsible for placing the explosives, the general suggested they could be criminals linked to the local group Cárteles Unidos, which operates in Michoacán and uses these tactics in their territorial dispute with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country.
