Overview

• Police reported finding bodies inside cellblocks, and AFP-verified images showed decapitations and other mutilation.
• The outbreak followed a deadly riot in Machala earlier this week that left 14 inmates and a guard dead, with officers briefly taken hostage, according to police.
• Relatives gathered outside the Esmeraldas facility seeking information as the penitentiary authority SNAI updated the official toll.
• Officials and reports describe violent clashes among narcotrafficking gangs inside overcrowded prisons on crucial drug routes between Colombia and Peru.
• Roughly 500 inmates have been killed in Ecuador’s prison disturbances since 2021, underscoring a crisis the state has struggled to contain.