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New Ecuador Prison Riot Leaves 15 Inmates Injured

NNA - A new prison riot that broke out in Quito left 15 inmates injured while a vehicle exploded outside another penitentiary in the port of Guayaquil, Ecuador's police said on Monday.

Ecuador has been scarred by regular violence inside its prison system for years, with authorities seemingly powerless to prevent incidents that are often deadly.

The latest riot took place at the small El Inca prison in the north of Quito, colonel Enrique Bautista, deputy police chief in the capital, told Teleamazonas.

No firearms were used but 15 inmates were injured, two of whom needed hospital treatment, said Bautista.

But he said the fighting had been "controlled" and that guards had confiscated 43 weapons after searching. 

In Guayaquil's massive prison complex that houses five separate jails, police did not report any injuries from the explosion outside the Guayas 4 penitentiary.

Police also did not say whether or not it was the result of a car bomb.

Some 350 inmates have been killed in five separate prison riots since February 2021, with 232 of those deaths coming in the Guayaquil complex.

At least 20 inmates died earlier this month inside the El Turi prison in Cuenca, southern Ecuador.

Ecuadoran President Guillermo Lasso insists the problem inside the facilities mirrors that outside, where drug gangs are vying for control of trafficking routes.

Those rivalries sometimes explode into grisly violence, with some inmates hacked to death or beheaded with machetes.

Some experts blame authorities for not caring about those caught up in the violence.

Situated between Colombia and Peru -- the two largest producers of cocaine in the world -- Ecuador seized a record 210 tons of drugs in 2021.—AFP

 

 

 

==============R.H.

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