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In Pictures: Ecuador prison riots leave dozens dead

Ecuador raises death toll from one of country’s bloodiest prison riots, as police chief warns new riot under way.

Soldiers stand guard outside the CRS Turi prison in Cuenca. [Fernando Machado/AFP]
Published On 25 Feb 2021

Ecuador on Wednesday raised the death toll from riots in four jails to 79, including 18 prisoners who were found dismembered at one site, one of the bloodiest outbreaks of prison violence in the country’s history.

But even as authorities said they had regained control following the initial riots, the head of Ecuador’s national police wrote on Twitter on Wednesday night that a new mutiny in Guayaquil’s prison was under way.

Police and troops were stationed at detention centres in the cities of Guayaquil, Cuenca and Latacunga, where gangs on Tuesday fought one another with handmade weapons in what authorities said was a coordinated outbreak of violence.

Several of Tuesday’s confrontations took place in maximum security areas of the Guayaquil and Cuenca prisons.

Prison authority SNAI said all those killed in the rioting were prisoners, with first reports citing 50 dead, before rising to 62 and to 79 in the latest report. A further dozen inmates and police were injured, according to official data.

Ecuador’s prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into the riots, saying in a statement it had found 18 dismembered bodies in one of the prisons.

Inmates’ relatives remained outside the prisons on Wednesday hoping for information about their loved ones.

Moreno declared Ecuador’s prison system in a state of emergency in 2019 after a wave of incidents that killed 24.

View of the El Turi jail, in the city of Cuenca. More than 79 inmates died in a series of riots that occurred in three prisons in various cities in Ecuador, the national police confirmed. [Robert Puglla/EPA]
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A woman waits outside a prison in Guayaquil where inmates were killed during a riot that the government described as a concerted action by criminal organisations. [Vicente Gaibor del Pino/Reuters]
Soldiers are deployed outside the prison in Guayaquil. [Jose Sánchez Lindao/AFP]
A policeman talks with relatives of the deceased prisoners outside the Zone 6 Forensic Centre in Cuenca, where they wait to receive the bodies. [Fernando Machado/AFP]
A relative of a deceased prisoner cries outside the Zone 6 Forensic Centre. [Fernando Machado/AFP
Coffins outside the offices of the Forensic Medicine and Forensic Science institute in Guayaquil, as the bodies of several inmates who died after a prison riot are brought in. [Vicente Gaibor del Pino/Reuters]
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People wait outside the offices of the Forensic Medicine and Forensic Science Institute in Guayaquil. [Vicente Gaibor del Pino/Reuters]
Relatives of killed inmates mourn outside the prison in Guayaquil. [Jose Sánchez Lindao/AFP]