Quito/Guayaquil, Ecuador:
Ecuador is preparing to pardon up to 2,000 inmates in order to relieve overcrowding at its detention centers following 118 inmates died and a additional 79 have been injured in the country’s worst-ever prison riot earlier this week, an official mentioned on Friday.
Bolivar Garzon, the director of the South American country’s SNAI prison authority, mentioned the government aimed to prioritize the elderly, girls, and prisoners with disabilities and terminal illnesses in the wake of the clashes on Tuesday at the Penitenciaria del Litoral in the southern city of Guayaquil.
The country’s prisons are presently home to some 39,000 inmates, Garzon added.
Garzon mentioned the riot, the most current in a wave of prison violence in the Andean nation, was sparked by “a battle for control by organized crime groups.” Riots left 79 dead in February and 22 in July of this year.
Officials say gangs have alliances with transnational criminal groups and are battling more than drug trafficking routes.
Ecuador has sent 3,600 police and military reinforcements to prisons across the nation to retain order, Interior Minister Alexandra Vela told reporters on Friday. She added that forensic units had identified 41 of the victims, and had delivered the bodies of 21 of the victims to their households.
Dozens of inmates’ relatives have gathered outdoors a Guayaquil morgue in search of info about their loved ones. Authorities mentioned at least six victims have been decapitated.
Eduardo Montes, 60, was awaiting news of his 25-year-old brother Vicente Montes, who is due to be released in one month.
“They sent us a photo where you can see the head of one victim, and we believe it is my brother, but we do not know if he is really dead or if he is alive,” Montes mentioned. “I have hope that he is alive and that they release him.”
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