Over the weekend, in Ecuador, all the people taken hostage by criminal gangs during the riots that began in several prisons in the country last week were freed. The hostages were guards and officials of set several prisons in Ecuador and had been prisoners since last Monday: they were freed in an operation involving the police and the armed forces about which not much is known yet.
L’announcement of the release was made on Saturday evening by the Servicio Nacional de Atención Integral a Personas Adultas Privadas de la Libertad ya Adolescentes Infractores (SNAI), the Ecuadorian authority that deals with prisons. The SNAI he did not specify the number of people freed: the hostages were however almost 180 people, 41 of whom had already been released previously and at least one of whom she was killed during the riots.
The riots in Ecuador began after the escape from prison of José Adolfo Macías Villamar, known as “Fito”, head of the criminal group Los Choneros and considered one of the most powerful in the country. The riots were also followed by widespread violence outside prisons in many cities, culminating in the armed assault on public television studios, broadcast live.
At the center of the violence are the country’s powerful and numerous criminal gangs, which have grown significantly in recent years. A country with almost 18 million inhabitants, Ecuador is one of the most violent in South America, above all due to the presence of several international drug trafficking gangs: it is in fact located between Colombia and Peru, the top two cocaine producers in the world.
– Read also: What happened in Ecuador with criminal gangs, from the beginning