QUITO.- Ecuador This Friday the construction of a maximum security prison for 800 prisoners, within the framework of their war against organized crime, which generated protests from residents of the area.
“Today we mark one of the most important milestones in our fight against terrorism and the mafias that entrenched themselves with impunity in our country for decades,” said the President Daniel Noboa in an event for the beginning of the work in the coastal town of Santa Elena.
In the surroundings of the property where the prison will be built, residents protested against the project.
The Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDH) reported on its X social network account that the police evicted “community members who were protesting against the construction” of the prison.
After taking office in November for a period of 18 months, the Ecuadorian president announced that he will build two maximum security prisons, one in the Amazon region and another on the Pacific coast, taking as a reference the penitentiary built by his Salvadoran counterpart, Nayib. Bukele, to combat criminal gangs.
In the port of Guayaquil (southwest), the main exit door for drugs to the United States and Europe, there is a maximum security penitentiary called La Roca, with capacity for 160 inmates.
The new prison, which will be added to the 36 existing ones throughout the country, will occupy 16.2 hectares and will be built in a “record time” of 300 days, said General Luis Zaldumbide, director of the state agency that administers prisons (SNAI).
The government will allocate $52 million to the construction of the prison, designed to “reclassify and isolate highly dangerous criminals, mafia leaders who will be monitored in real time,” Noboa said.
Ecuadorian prisons have become theaters of terror. Since 2021, more than 460 inmates have died due to violent clashes between drug gangs vying for power.
The ruler, elected in early elections and who in January declared the country in “internal armed conflict” Due to criminal violence, he mobilized the military to neutralize around twenty groups branded as terrorists and belligerents.
This declaration, among other things, allows the Armed Forces to intervene inside penitentiaries, usually in charge of a civil security body from the SNAI.
The current Ecuadorian prison system has capacity for 30,200 people and is overcrowded with 31,300 inmates, according to a 2022 census.
Source: With information from AFP
