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The president of Ecuador has said the country was at war with drug gangs, as dozens of prison staff were held hostage in a deteriorating security crisis that has seen a series of jailbreaks, bombings and the temporary takeover of a television studio.
Daniel Noboa, who took office in November promising to halt Ecuador’s surging crime wave, announced that the country would begin moving foreigners from jails to free up resources in response to the crisis, which began on Sunday when a notorious gang leader escaped from prison.
The president has designated 22 gangs as terrorist organisations, allowing the military to target them. “We are at war and we cannot back down in the face of these terrorist groups,” he said in an interview with local media on Wednesday.
Ecuador’s prison service warned that 125 guards and 14 administrative staff had been taken hostage across five different jails, with 11 later freed.
“We are doing everything possible and impossible to get [the hostages] out safe and sound,” Noboa said. “But we cannot stop the war over this because the state is at war in every province.”
The violence has drawn responses from across the region, with Peru declaring an emergency along its northern border with Ecuador on Tuesday, while Brazil, Colombia and Chile voiced support for Noboa’s government. China, Ecuador’s largest creditor, has closed its embassy and consulates until further notice.
Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, on Wednesday condemned the violence in a post on X. “We are committed to supporting Ecuadoreans’ security and prosperity and bolstering co-operation with partners to ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice,” he wrote.
Once a relatively peaceful nation flanked by more violent neighbours, Ecuador has been facing a surge in crime driven by drug gangs competing to secure profitable trafficking routes in recent years. The country’s per capita murder rate in 2023 — 46.5 per 100,000 people — has increased eightfold since 2018 and is among the highest in the region.
Overcrowded jails, used by gangs as bases of operations, have often been the epicentres of violence, with a government spokesperson this week saying the prison system has “completely failed”. More than 400 inmates have been murdered in the past four years.
The current escalation of violence began on Sunday night, when the jailed leader of the notorious Choneros gang, Adolfo Macías, was found missing from his cell in the regional prison complex in the port city of Guayaquil, hours before he was due to be transferred to a maximum-security installation nearby.
Authorities later said Macías had likely escaped, triggering riots in several jails, with Noboa on Monday declaring a two-month nationwide state of emergency and a nightly curfew, which was met with violence and explosions in cities across the country.
Another jailbreak took place on Monday night in Riobamba, in the central Andes, with 32 inmates escaping, including Fabricio Colón, a leader of the Los Lobos gang. Many fugitives were captured, though Colón is still on the run.
On Tuesday afternoon, a television studio in Guayaquil was stormed by masked gunmen live on air. Police said that all the intruders had been arrested after a task force was dispatched to the scene.
Authorities in Guayaquil said separately that at least eight people had been killed in the unrest.
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