21 dead during violent prison incidents

Violent incidents that broke out in two prisons in Ecuador cost the lives of at least 21 inmates, the prosecutor’s office announced.

“13 bodies have been identified since the clashes,” the prosecutor’s office said via Twitter yesterday at the Latakunga detention center in Kotopaxi province.

In the incidents in another prison, in the province of Waia (southwest), “eight detainees” lost their lives, the same source added.

The Special Forces of the police “regained control” of the two prisons, the prison service announced (SNAI) a little earlier.

SNAI said earlier yesterday that 18 people had been killed and about 50 injured, including police officers.

The police, with the support of the army, also prevented the “escape of 31 detainees” from Latakunga, she said in a press release she published.

These two prisons are among those where bloody incidents broke out in February. In clashes between gangs at the stake of control of the largest penitentiaries in the Andean country, 79 prisoners were killed in one day.

The February incidents were marked by horrific scenes, with corpses beheaded, and revealed the power of drug-trafficking gangs in prisons, where the problem of overcrowding is acute.

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