Recent prison riot in Ecuador results in at least 15 deaths

• There has been a recent riot to slam Ecuador’s dysfunctional jail system.
• At least 15 convicts were killed.
• Abundant people were injured.

In the most recent riot to slam Ecuador’s dysfunctional jail system, at least 15 convicts were killed and numerous others were injured.

“15 individuals were killed and 20 were injured” in Monday’s rioting at the Cotopaxi No. 1 jail in Latacunga, according to a SNAI representative, the organization in charge of running Ecuador’s prison system.

Since February 2021, more than 400 prisoners have died in prison fighting, which conservative President Guillermo Lasso’s administration has blamed on gang conflict over area control and drug trafficking routes.

Officials stated that authorities are seeking to identify the remains, and Oswaldo Coronel, the governor of the province of Cotopaxi, which encompasses Latacunga, assured reporters that security had been restored.

14 of the injured, according to Coronel, had been transferred to a hospital.

Latacunga is located about 80 kilometers south of Quito, the capital of Ecuador.

Only two months had passed when violence at the same prison in Santa Domingo claimed the lives of 43 inmates when 12 detainees were killed there in July.

According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Ecuador’s jail system lacks a clear policy, and its detainees are subjected to crowded and hazardous conditions.

Families have been requesting system reform because they believe a much higher number of people have perished during jail riots. Together, they founded the Committee of Families for Justice in Prisons to call for the state’s decades-long carelessness to be held accountable.

According to official statistics, there are currently 33,500 inmates in Ecuador’s jails, which is 11.3% more than their maximum capacity.