Diplomatic crises: Count of assaults perpetrated on embassies in the last 50 years

There are many cases of politicians who have taken refuge or requested asylum in embassies, remaining in some cases for up to years in those offices or managing to leave the country thanks to safe conduct, but assaults on embassies by police forces are rare.

This is the chronology of embassies raided by government forces in search of refugees in the last 50 years:

June 18, 1976: Uruguayan teacher Elena Quinteros Almeida She was forcibly removed by Uruguayan soldiers from the Venezuelan embassy in Montevideo, when he was trying to request asylum at that legation. Hours later she was murdered. Relations between both countries were broken until 1985.

November 4, 1979 to January 21, 1981: Iranian revolutionary guards and students stormed the US embassy in Tehran, where They captured 52 officials, whom they held hostage for more than a year. They were released minutes after the inauguration of US President Ronald Reagan.

January 31, 1980: A group of Guatemalan peasants from the department of Quiché occupied the Spanish embassy in Guatemala, demanding an end to military repression. When The police were carrying out the assault on the building, a fire broke out and 34 Guatemalans died. among them Rigoberta Menchú’s father, as well as the first secretary of the Embassy, ​​Jaime Ruiz del Arbol, and the employees Felipe Sáenz and María Teresa Vázquez de Villa.

February 13, 1981-February 21, 1981: A group of 29 Cubans carrying weapons attacked the Ecuadorian embassy in Havana demanding political asylum. They took three of the diplomats hostage, including the ambassador. After negotiations and releasing the diplomats, Some of the refugees left and shortly after the Cuban security forces assaulted the legation. This action provoked a strong protest from Ecuador, which had not authorized the assault.

13 julio 1990: Four Cuban police officers entered the courtyard of the Spanish embassy in Havana and They forcibly removed a young man who was being persecuted and who was probably going to request asylum. The Spanish authorities accepted the Cuban explanations as valid. For five days, several Cubans had already been taking refuge in the Spanish legation.

April 17, 1992-September 27, 1996: Mohamed Najibullah, former Afghan president loyal to the USSR after abruptly leaving power, He took refuge in the UN headquarters in Kabul, with embassy status, where he remained for more than four years. until September 27, 1996, when a group of Taliban forcibly removed him and executed him with a shot to the head. He also forcibly removed and hanged his brother Shahpur Ahmadzai.

December 17, 1996-April 22, 1997: 14 members of the Peruvian terrorist group Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement held more than 800 people at the home of the Japanese ambassador in Lima. The guerrillas freed almost everyone that same day and remained in the building with 72 hostages. until April 22, when a Peruvian Army commando assaulted the legation, an operation in which one of the kidnapped people and the 14 terrorists died.

May 1998: The Japanese Police entered the Chinese embassy in Tokyo without authorization and evicted a person who had entered the building twice, and who She was identified as a person of Chinese nationality and resident abroad.so he was released.

May 8, 2002: Five North Koreans sought refuge in the Japanese consulate in Shenyang, northeast China. The Chinese Police entered the premises without authorization and forcibly removed them. Faced with the protest of the Japanese government Due to the incident, China alleged that the police raid occurred to guarantee the security of the consulate. The five people traveled outside the country days later by agreement of the two countries.

June 19, 2012: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange He takes refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London fleeing a US extradition request. After keeping him in asylum for seven years, Ecuador withdraws protection and he is detained at the embassy by the British police.

March 16, 2024: They assault and loot the honorary consulate of Guatemala in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in the midst of the political crisis and insecurity that exists in the country.

5 April 2024: The Ecuadorian Police break into the Mexican embassy in Quito and arrests former vice president Jorge Glas, who had been taking refuge in the legation since December 2023.