Unprecedented violence rocking Ecuador claimed the life of another political leader on Monday, bringing the number of politically-related homicides in the past four weeks to three, including that of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.
The shooting death of Pedro Briones, a local leader of Revolución Ciudadana, the party of former President Rafael Correa, was confirmed by Luisa González, who leads the electoral preferences and is a member of the same party. The homicide occurred in the northern province of Esmeraldas. No further details were available at the moment.
“Ecuador is experiencing its bloodiest time,” González wrote on the X social network, formerly called Twitter. “My solidarity hug to the family of compañero Pedro Briones, who fell into the hands of violence.”
The murder of Briones, who was a political leader in a rural area of ??San Mateo de Esmeraldas, came less than a week after the South American country was rocked by the broad daylight killing of Villavicencio, who had taken a position firm against organized crime and corruption.
Villavicencio was assassinated at the end of a political rally in the capital Quito, despite being accompanied by a security team that included police and bodyguards.
Those crimes came after the mayor of Manta, Ecuador’s third-largest city, was shot to death on July 26. Agustín Intriago, 38, had recently been re-elected for a term that began in May.
Thousands of people have died in the past three years in Ecuador, where the country has become a major transit point for drugs and where local gangs linked to major cartels fight for control of the streets, prisons and police stations. drug trafficking routes. Crime and violence have dominated conversations surrounding Sunday’s election.
González criticized the government of President Guillermo Lasso for the lack of control in prisons, which he said have become productive and recreational centers for prisoners and organized crime. At least 400 inmates have died since 2021 in various riots.
Authorities transferred the leader of one of the country’s most powerful gangs, Los Choneros, to a maximum-security prison on Saturday. Villavicencio had accused the group and its leader, Adolfo Macías, known as “Fito” and whom he linked to the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, of threatening him and his campaign days before the murder.
Macías was transferred to a maximum security prison in the same complex of detention centers in the port city of Guayaquil. The transfer was made after some 4,000 soldiers and police officers searched the jail where Macías was being held and confiscated weapons, ammunition and explosives. In response, several inmates protested on Monday and hung posters calling for Macías’s return.
Authorities have not released a motive for Villavicencio’s murder. An Ecuadorian judge on Friday ordered pretrial detention for six Colombian men described by authorities as suspected of participating in the crime. The FBI is assisting in the investigation.
The country’s National Police recorded 3,568 violent deaths in the first six months of the year, well above the 2,042 in the same period in 2022. That year ended with 4,600 violent deaths, the country’s all-time record and double the 2021 total. .
