The director of the Penitentiary of the Litoral, the largest and most populated prison in Ecuador, was murdered this Thursday On September 12, a prison officer who was with her at the time of the attack was injured, according to the National Service for Comprehensive Care for Persons Deprived of Liberty (SNAI), the state’s penitentiary agency.
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The attack against Maria Daniela Icaza and her companion It occurred around 6:00 p.m. local time (11:00 p.m. GMT) on the road between the town of Daule and the city of Guayaquil, where the Litoral Penitentiary is located.
Icaza was heading to the Guasmo Sur Hospital, located in the south of Guayaquil, when, according to local media, Armed men intercepted the vehicle and shot her, who was in the passenger seat.
Initially, the SNAI reported that Icaza had managed to be transferred alive to the hospital, buto later confirmed his death.
This is the second murder of a prison’s top authority in nine days, after Alex Guevara, director of the Lago Agrio prison in the Amazonian province of Sucumbíos, was murdered in similar circumstances on September 3.
How many prisoners are there in the Litoral Penitentiary?
The Litoral Penitentiary, officially called the Guayas Male Deprivation of Liberty Center Number 1, is the largest of the five prisons that make up the Guayaquil penitentiary complex, in which There are approximately 12,000 prisoners held there.
More than 6,000 are in the Litoral Penitentiary, which between 2021 and 2023 was the sceneor the worst massacres that occurred due to clashes between criminal gangs fighting for internal control, at least until the militarization of these centers ordered at the beginning of the year by President Daniel Noboa.
The entry of the military into the penitentiary facilities took place within the framework of the state of emergency and “internal armed conflict” declared by the ruler against organized crime, which is attributed to a rise in criminal violence that has led Ecuador to be the country in Latin America with the highest homicide rate. registering 47.2 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023.
The wave of murders has also previously claimed the lives of other prison directors, as well as municipal authorities, including several mayors, and at the national level, like presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.
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Source: https://www.noticiascaracol.com/mundo/asesinan-a-directora-de-la-carcel-mas-grande-y-poblada-de-ecuador-hay-tambien-un-herido-cb20
