National

Ecuador police, military enter riot-hit prison after fresh violence

Four people were wounded and police were shot at in a new clash between prisoners at the Ecuadorian prison where 118 people were killed just days earlier in the country’s deadliest inmate riot.

Police commander Tannya Varela said there was a shootout between inmates at the prison in Guayaquil.

Officers neutralised the confrontation and maintained control of the prison, the police force said.Military, elite police cooperate

Elite police teams entered the facility, supported by soldiers and a military tank, according to video released by the force.

Two rifles, three pistols, ammunition and cell phones were seized in the prison, police said.

The jail has space for 5,300 inmates, but it houses 8,500 — 60 percent more than capacity.

On Tuesday, at least 118 inmates were killed, six of them beheaded, as rival gangs armed with guns and grenades went to war at the prison.

Another 86 wounded were wounded, six critically, according to Ecuador’s prisons authority.

It was the latest in a string of bloody clashes in Ecuador’s broken prison system, with 237 inmates killed so far this year – up from 103 in 2020.

Comment here