Over 50 dead and 12 injured after clashes at same Ecuadorian prison where a riot left more than 100 dead in September
Dozens of inmates were killed and injured in clashes early Saturday in Litoral Penitentiary, the same prison in the Guayas Province where more than 100 were In July, Eduardo Moncayo, then-prison chief, told local media that the Litoral Penitentiary was the most overcrowded in the country, with more than 9,000 inmates in a facility planned for 5,000.Such overcrowding is the primary cause of violence, Douglas Durán, director of the United Nations Latin American Institute for the Prevention of Crime (ILANUD), told CNN.”According to our databases, in 2019 Ecuador jails were at 140% overcapacity. That is considered a cruel and inhumane treatment for the inmates under UN protocols, and it’s a chronic problem across the region,” Duran said.Ecuador’s prison inmates are also often stunningly well-armed. In Guayaquil, they deployed automatic weapons and even grenades. At the Ibarra penitentiary, prison guards told CNN they feared being overwhelmed by a growing number of convicts with access to weaponry from machetes to explosives.During the investigation into the September massacre, authorities seized guns, ammunition, 25 bladed weapons, three explosive devices and various drugs, according to SNAI. A video released by Ecuador Police captured security personnel retrieving some of the items from what appears to be one of the prison cells. The clip showed handguns wrapped in plastic, various knives, cell phones, packages of ammunition, and different packages of drugs.CNN’s Stefano Pozzebon and Ana Maria Canizares contributed to this report.
