QUITO.- The authorities of Ecuador hope to be able to return 3,000 prisoners to their countries of origin and somewhat alleviate the overcrowding of their prisons, areas of frequent riots and where a lack of control reigns evident with the escape of several prisoners, including the leader of ‘Los Choneros’, José Macías Villamar, alias ‘Fito’.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador, Gabriela Sommerfeld, explained that 90 percent of the foreign prisoners come from Colombia, which has already shown, as she said, its willingness to receive them, and from Venezuela.
Sommerfeld explained that together with Peru, citizens of these three countries represent 90 percent of foreign prisoners. Approximately 1,500 are Colombians, 1,400 are Venezuelans and 100 are Peruvians, he said in an interview for radio Platium, reported by the newspaper ‘El Universo’.
“Today we need space,” they acknowledged, ensuring that they have already received approval from the Peruvian and Colombian authorities to carry out these transfers. We are sending all the regulations that they require of us,” he said.
Sommerfeld pointed out that each of the transfers will be analyzed independently, as stated in the presidential decree of January 29, ratified at the dawn of the recent worsening of the security crisis that the country has been suffering for five years.
Source: With information from Europa Press
