Ecuador.- Gisella Díaz, a candidate for rural councilor in the province of Esmeraldas, in Ecuador, denounced the murder of her nephew, identified as Fabián Portes Díaz.
“It was not the will of God to take my nephew, but the situation of insecurity and hopelessness (in which) we are all immersed in Esmeraldas,” Díaz wrote on his Twitter account, where he published the photograph of his nephew.
The event occurred in the 26 de Junio neighborhood, north of the Esmeraldas canton, in the province of the same name, on Wednesday, December 21.
Portes and another citizen, identified as Jefferson Caicedo, were traveling in a vehicle when they were attacked with firearms by individuals on a motorcycle, reported the local newspaper Extra.
The candidate’s nephew tried to dodge the hitmen and hit his vehicle against the attackers’ motorcycle, but he did not survive the shots he received, like his companion.
“They were allegedly following them from meters behind and when the motorcycle hit them, the hitmen fled on foot. These are attacks directed and focused on these people,” said Santiago Viteri, chief of the Esmeraldas Police District.
Revenge
Díaz, candidate of the leftist Revolución Ciudadana for the sectional elections scheduled for February 2023, promised revenge. In a video that went viral on social media, she is heard saying: “If the people let me be an authority, I’m going to kill them all, wretches, cursed scourges.”
Although in the video he refers to the young man as his son, he later clarified on social networks that it is his nephew.
The candidate has received messages of support for the hard time she is going through, including that of the former president of the country Rafael Correa.
“My solidarity hug to Gisella Díaz, our candidate for rural councilor in Esmeraldas. Yesterday her nephew was murdered, who had to earn a living as an executive taxi. The country is living a true nightmare,” he wrote on Twitter.
Esmeraldas is one of the provinces with the highest security index in Ecuador. At the beginning of November, as in Guayas and Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, there were attacks in this entity, which led the Ecuadorian government to establish a state of emergency for 45 days to contain insecurity, a period that expired on 15 from December.
