QUITO, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- Eight inmates were killed Thursday in two separate riots at prisons in the Andean provinces of Cotopaxi and Pichincha in Ecuador, the National Service for Comprehensive Care for Adults Deprived of Liberty and Adolescent Offenders (SNAI) said.
According to an official statement, four inmates died at the Cotopaxi No. 1 Deprivation of Liberty Center in Latacunga, and four others at the Pichincha No. 1 Provisional Detention Center, known as El Inca prison, in Quito.
The SNAI said that 10 other people were injured and are receiving medical treatment.
The alleged participants have been identified and will be transferred to El Encuentro, a maximum-security prison in the coastal province of Santa Elena, it said.
The SNAI added that the Security Bloc, made up of the National Police and the Armed Forces, is keeping security protocols in place and conducting operations at the affected prisons to maintain order.
Ecuadorian prisons are considered one of the main hotspots of violence in the Andean country and have been the scene of massacres with dozens of deaths since 2021, the result of clashes between rival criminal gangs.
Since January 2024, Ecuador's military has been deployed to prisons under the government's declaration of an "internal armed conflict" against organized crime groups. ■
