QUITO.- The president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, said Thursday in his speech before the United Nations Security Council in New York that both he and members of his cabinet have received death threats in recent months, amid an increase unprecedented violence in the Andean nation.
Noboa, who took office on November 23 for a period of 18 months, spoke before the international forum about the situation in Ecuador, from which he said went from being “considered a country of peace” to one that is now threatened by a wave of transnational organized crime.
He said that “almost every day, for the last 60 days, we have had death threats, as well as our ministers and their families,” he said without giving further details.
When presiding over the session of the Security Council, the president said that his government has an outstanding debt, “since within the same elections (in which he became president in the second round) we had a presidential candidate who was assassinated.” referred to Fernando Villavicencio, who championed the fight against corruption during his campaign.
“Transactional crime demands a forceful and timely response,” said Noboa, and advocated for “the support of international cooperation” in favor of peace.
Escalation of violence in Ecuador
In the last three years, Ecuador has experienced an unprecedented escalation of violence and insecurity that the authorities have attributed to the presence of organized crime groups linked to drug trafficking, which have challenged the State through a wave of delinquent and criminal acts, both in the country’s prisons and on its streets.
In 2022, the country surpassed the record for violent deaths with a rate of 25 per 100,000 inhabitants, which translated into some 4,600 deaths that placed it among the most dangerous in the region, according to official statistics.
From 2021 to 2023, 450 inmates have been murdered in prisons during bloody clashes between gangs, which according to authorities are caused by the dispute over power and control of drug trafficking and micro-trafficking routes.
On Wednesday, before traveling to the United States, the Ecuadorian president said that he received a request from an organized crime group to establish a peace pact, which he attributed to a sign that his management is working. He stated that this possibility has not been contemplated.
Source: AP
