Death toll in Ecuador prison riot rises to 17 after Litoral Penitentiary violence

# Death toll in Ecuador prison riot rises to 17 after Litoral Penitentiary violence

*Event date: 2024-11-12*

Authorities in Ecuador say a riot at the Litoral Penitentiary in Guayaquil left 17 inmates dead and 15 others injured, in one of the deadliest episodes yet at the country’s most overcrowded and violent prison. The latest toll deepens the crisis facing President Daniel Noboa, who has made prison security a central part of his law-and-order platform.

The corrections agency said on social media that the disturbances were serious incidents among people deprived of liberty. It did not immediately give details about how the violence unfolded, but the agency did confirm that visitation was suspended after the riot. The attorney general’s office said nine inmates would be charged with murder over the episode.

The prison in coastal Guayaquil has long been a flashpoint in Ecuador’s widening security collapse. Litoral Penitentiary holds about 10,000 inmates, roughly twice its intended capacity, and has become a symbol of how overcrowding, corruption and weak state control have allowed criminal groups to entrench themselves inside detention facilities.

The riot is the latest in a long series of deadly prison disturbances across Ecuador. Since 2021, a dozen prison riots have killed more than 400 people, according to the AP report. That broader pattern has turned Ecuadorian prisons into some of the deadliest in Latin America and exposed the state’s limited ability to contain gang violence behind bars.

Noboa ordered the military to take control of the country’s most violent prisons at the start of 2024 after a wave of violence shook the country, including the storming of a television studio by gunmen and threats of random executions directed at civilians and security forces. The latest riot is likely to intensify debate over whether those emergency measures are working fast enough to stop the bloodshed.

The prison violence also has political consequences beyond the walls of Litoral Penitentiary. AP reported that the latest killings are likely to agitate the presidential race in a country where security has become the defining issue for voters. Noboa has tied his political future to restoring order in prisons and on the streets, but the repeated outbreaks suggest how hard that will be to deliver.

Ecuador’s prisons are now deeply entangled with drug trafficking networks connected to Colombia and Mexico. Many inmates are heavily armed with weapons smuggled in from outside, and some groups continue to direct criminal activity from inside the facilities. The result is a cycle of violence that the state has repeatedly struggled to break.

The latest deaths in Guayaquil add to a grim recent history at the same prison. In 2021, violence at Litoral Penitentiary killed 119 people in one outbreak. That toll remains one of the worst prison massacres in the region and a warning of what can happen when gangs compete for control of an under-supervised detention system.

For now, the government is left managing another crisis with limited room for error: a prison riot that has already killed 17 people, injured 15 more and renewed questions about whether Ecuador can regain control of one of its most dangerous institutions.