Overview

• Ecuador has expelled approximately 870 Colombian inmates since Friday through the Rumichaca crossing, accounting for about 60 percent of Colombians in its prisons.
• Colombia’s foreign ministry lodged a formal protest, labeling the removals a breach of international law and an unfriendly gesture over the absence of a joint transfer protocol.
• Quito rejects claims of mass deportation, emphasizing that individual rulings and judicial release orders guided each case under its legal framework.
• Authorities in Ipiales and Ecuador’s Carchi province had to rush to process and accommodate the sudden influx of deportees without prior coordination.
• The expulsions form part of President Daniel Noboa’s strategy to ease severe overcrowding and curb violence in Ecuador’s gang-plagued prison system.