Ecuadorian prison riot leaves 44 inmates dead, officials warn of Mexican cartel involvement

A deadly prison riot left dozens of inmates dead on Monday morning after rival gangs in a prison in the Ecuadorian city of Santo Domingo, government sources revealed.

According to a report from El Universo, at least 44 prisoners were killed, 108 escaped (and remain at large) and 112 have been recaptured. Following the riot, Interior Minister Patricio Carrillo told reporters that the riot was likely caused by discontent surrounding a court-ordered transfer of a prominent gang leader to the Santo Domingo Prison.

National Police Commander Fausto Salinas told reporters that the prison is now back under government control and added that a security fence was built around the prison’s perimeter in order to prevent further escapes.

Violence has skyrocketed across the Ecuadorian prison system over the past year but experts have warned that it might not be homegrown but rather the product of a bitter power struggle between rival Mexican cartels to control cocaine trafficking routes in the tiny Andean nation, The Guardian reported.

In September of last year, Ecuadorian Col. Mario Pazmiño, Ecuador’s former military intelligence chief, said the violence was driven by growing tensions between The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels and their local affiliates, which include Los Choneros, Los Lobos as well as Los Tigretones and Los Lagartos.

“This kind of depraved violence has grown as gangs fight for control of the prisons,” Pazmiño told the Guardian. “The violence; the dismemberment, the decapitation, is a strategy to sow terror among the prisoners to gain territorial control – not just inside the prison but outside.”

Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso echoed the point, saying, “Regrettably, the prisons have become terrain for disputes for power between gangs.”

According to Itania Villarreal, a former director of the state institution that works to rehabilitate inmates, “There have been the most atrocious and inhumane murders, with decapitations, burnings, even using chainsaws to carry out these acts.”

Last year, 316 prisoners died during riots in various prisons across Ecuador. In response, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said the system is blighted by state abandonment and the absence of a comprehensive policy, as well as poor conditions for inmates. The country's prisons are about 15% overcrowded and house some 35,000 people.

Conservative President Guillermo Lasso has promised to reduce prison violence through a gang pacification process, early release for prisoners and political and social reforms.