At least 31 inmates were killed during a violent riot at a prison in the southwestern Ecuadorian port city of Machala on Sunday, the country’s prisons authority said, marking one of the deadliest prison clashes this year.
According to a statement posted on X by Ecuador’s national prisons agency, SNAI, twenty-seven prisoners died from “asphyxiation and immediate death by hanging.”
Earlier in the day, four other inmates were reported dead in a separate disturbance at the same facility, which police tactical units later brought under control.
Authorities said the initial unrest was triggered by the reorganization of inmates within a newly designated maximum-security area of the prison. No prison guards or police officers were reported injured, and investigations into the circumstances surrounding the deaths are underway.
Ecuador has been grappling with a surge in deadly prison violence in recent years, driven largely by rival criminal gangs vying for control of drug trafficking routes and influence inside the overcrowded penitentiary system.
Hundreds of inmates have died since 2021 in clashes that have exposed chronic weaknesses in prison management and security.
President Daniel Noboa, who has vowed to take a hard line against organized crime, has deployed military and police forces to regain control of the country’s prisons. However, despite repeated government interventions, violent uprisings continue to erupt.
In September, a riot at the same Machala prison left 14 people dead and another 14 wounded. Days later, a separate outbreak of violence in a facility in the northern city of Esmeraldas, near the Colombian border, claimed 17 lives.
The latest bloodshed underscores the continuing instability in Ecuador’s penal system, which remains a flashpoint in the government’s broader battle against powerful drug gangs and escalating violence nationwide.
Source: Reuters
Written By Rodney Mbua
