A chaotic night at a prison in Machala, southwestern Ecuador, left dozens dead and many more wounded after an early-morning riot that spiraled into tragedy.
The trouble began around 3:00 a.m. local time, when neighbors heard gunfire, explosions and desperate cries coming from inside the jail. By morning, officials said elite police units had stormed the facility and brought the situation back under control, but the human cost was severe.
Prison authorities later announced that 27 inmates were found dead that afternoon. Officials said those prisoners appeared to have died by asphyxiation “by suspension,” and forensic teams were on site to investigate and confirm the details. Earlier in the violence, four people were killed and dozens were hurt the government said 33 inmates and one police officer suffered injuries during the clashes.
Ecuador’s prisons have become battlegrounds for rival drug gangs fighting over control of smuggling routes and other illegal trades. Authorities say more than 500 inmates have been killed nationwide in similar gang fights in recent years.
Officials have not yet given the names of the dead or confirmed exactly what triggered this latest outbreak of violence, though some reports link it to plans to transfer inmates into a new maximum-security jail the government plans to open soon. Tensions at the Machala prison aren’t new: a clash there at the end of September left 13 inmates and a prison worker dead.
For now, investigators are piecing together the sequence of events, while families and communities reel from another brutal episode in Ecuador’s ongoing prison crisis.
