Ecuador

QUITO, Nov 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ecuador’s president on Monday renewed for one month a state of emergency aimed at restoring calm in the country’s prisons, where riots have left more than 300 inmates dead this year.

   President Guillermo Lasso signed a decree that allows for mobilization of police and armed forces to “re-inforce and re-establish order and control” in Ecuador’s overcrowded, violence-wracked jails.

QUITO, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso has pardoned prisoners jailed for minor traffic crimes and others suffering terminal illnesses to alleviate overcrowding in penitentiaries across the country, his press office said.

A wave of violence has beset Ecuador's prisons in recent months, leaving scores of prisoners dead as gangs fight for control of drug trafficking routes.

As well as violence, Ecuador's prisons are plagued by overcrowding of around 30% and poor living conditions for the system's 39,000 inmates.

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — A prolonged gunbattle between rival gangs inside Ecuador’s largest prison killed at least 68 inmates and wounded 25 on Saturday, while authorities said it took most of the day to regain control at the Litoral Penitentiary, which recently saw the country’s worst prison bloodbath.

QUITO, Oct 25 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) – At least four people were killed yesterday, by an avalanche on the Chimborazo volcano, in central Ecuador, said the country’s Integrated Security Service, ECU 911.

The avalanche fell on a group of 12 hikers, as they were climbing the volcano, at an altitude of about 6,100 metres, the agency said in a statement.

QUITO, Oct 22 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ecuador’s attorney general’s office said it has opened a preliminary investigation against President Guillermo Lasso for tax fraud, after an opposition leader presented allegations against him linked to the Pandora Papers leak.

Former presidential candidate and indigenous leader Yaku Perez called for an investigation into Lasso’s finances and tax contributions after offshore companies owned by Lasso were mentioned in the Pandora Papers.

QUITO, Oct 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Four inmates were found dead Thursday at the same Ecuadorian prison where 119 prisoners were killed in the country’s deadliest inmate riot two weeks ago, the prison authority said.

The SNAI national prison service said on Twitter that the deaths were the result of “alleged suicide.”

The prison service added that “security protocols” had been activated at the penitentiary in the southern coastal city of Guayaquil after the bodies were found at dawn.

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Ecuador on Thursday sought to restore order at one of its largest prisons after a riot this week killed at least 116 inmates in the latest bout of violence authorities have linked to gangs vying for control of drug trafficking routes.

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuador’s president has declared a state of emergency in the prison system following a battle among gang members in a coastal lockup that killed at least 116 people and injured 80 in what authorities say was the worst prison bloodbath ever in the country.

Officials said at least five of the dead were found to have been beheaded.

QUITO, Sept 29 (NNN-XINHUA) – At least 24 inmates were killed and another 48 were injured, in clashes yesterday, at the Litoral Penitentiary, located in the coastal city of Guayaquil, in south-western Ecuador, authorities and the National Police said.

Speaking to local media, Pablo Arosemena, the governor of the province of Guayas, whose capital is Guayaquil, confirmed the number of victims in the melee in different parts of the prison.

(Reuters) --- An indigenous community in Ecuador's Amazon region is blocking access to one of state oil company Petroecuador's main fields in a protest over compensation, prompting the company to request help from the armed forces to deliver supplies.