Quito: Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso declared state of emergency in the country for 60 days. The emergency was declared as drug crimes surged in the country.
‘Starting immediately, our Armed Forces and police will be felt with force in the streets because we are decreeing a state of emergency throughout the national territory’, the president said on state broadcaster Ecuador TV. Earlier on Monday, he appointed a new defence minister in the country. The emergency will provide the government more power and thus it can mobilize its soldiers and police to patrol the country’s 65 prisons, as well as drug cartels.
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Ecuador has already registered almost 1,900 murders this year — more than the 1,400 registered in the whole of 2020. Ecuador has also been faced with deadly violence in its prisons. In September, at least 116 inmates were killed and dozens were injured at a riot in a prison in Guayas province. Till now, approximately 200 inmates have died in violence in Ecuador’s prisons.
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