QUITO_ The mayor of a coastal town in Ecuador was shot dead, the police reported this Sunday, in the midst of a state of emergency declared in the country to stop violence linked to drug trafficking.
Brigitte García, 27 years old, was mayor of the San Vicente resort, in the province of Manabí (southwest), and was murdered along with one of her officials.
During the early hours of the morning, “two people were identified inside a vehicle without vital signs, with gunshot wounds,” the police said on their X social network account.
The crime occurred in the midst of the state of emergency that has been in force in Ecuador since January, when there was an onslaught of drug trafficking that left around twenty dead, explosions in the streets, temporary kidnappings of prison officials and the armed takeover of a television channel that broadcast live.
wave of violence
The wave of violence was unleashed after the escape of the leader of the Los Choneros gang, Adolfo Macías, alias Fito, from the Guayaquil prison.
After the escape, President Daniel Noboa declared the country in an internal armed conflict and called around twenty drug organizations “terrorists” and “belligerents”, deploying the Armed Forces to subdue them.
The government maintains that the so-called “Phoenix Plan” has reduced violence thanks to the presence of the military in prisons and on the streets.
But this weekend several acts of violence were reported in the country.
On Saturday, an army patrol was ambushed in the province of Sucumbíos (border with Colombia), in which one soldier died and three were injured.
In the Andean city of Latacunga (center) the police evacuated a stadium where a professional soccer championship match was being played due to a bomb threat. After the inspection, the agents detonated five “possible explosive charges,” according to the police.
“No one is safe”
Mayor García was part of the Citizen Revolution movement, led by former socialist president Rafael Correa (2007-2017).
In August of last year, presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was shot as he left a meeting with supporters. He had reported threats from the leader of a drug gang.
Months before, the mayor of the coastal city of Manta (southwest), Agustín Intriago, was also shot dead.
In addition to politicians, prosecutors have also been victims of violence. The most recent case was the murder in Guayaquil of César Suárez, who was investigating the wife of escaped trafficker Fito.
Since January, when the state of emergency was declared, the public force has carried out nearly 165,000 operations, has made more than 12,000 arrests, killed 15 people considered “terrorists” and has seized some 65 tons of drugs, according to an Executive summary.
Located in the middle of Colombia and Peru, the largest cocaine producers in the world, Ecuador has become a logistics center for shipping drugs to the United States and Europe.
Associated with Mexican and Colombian cartels, Ecuadorian criminal gangs compete to the death for trafficking routes and power in prisons, where some 460 inmates have died since 2021.
The homicide rate also skyrocketed in the country, once considered an island of peace. Between 2018 and 2023 the country rate went from 6 to a record 46 murders per 100,000 inhabitants.
Source: AFP
