Armed men break into Ecuador TV station
GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador — Masked men broke onto the set of a public television channel in Ecuador waving guns and explosives during a live broadcast Tuesday, and the president issued a decree declaring that the violence-plagued country had entered an “internal armed conflict.”
The men armed with pistols and what looked like sticks of dynamite entered the set of the TC Television network in the port city of Guayaquil during a news program that was airing live in thousands of homes across the nation and shouted that they had bombs. Noises similar to gunshots could be heard in the background. No one was killed in the attack.
Authorities have not said who was behind the television station occupation or a series of other attacks that have shaken the South American country recently, but they follow the apparent escapes from prison of two of Ecuador’s most powerful drug gang leaders.
Ecuador has been rocked by a series of attacks, including the abductions of several police officers, in the wake of a notorious gang leader’s apparent weekend escape from prison. On Monday, President Daniel Noboa declared a national state of emergency, a measure that lets authorities suspend people’s rights and mobilize the military in places like prisons.
Shortly after the gunmen stormed the TV station, Noboa issued another decree designating 20 drug-trafficking gangs operating in the country as terrorist groups and authorizing Ecuador’s military to “neutralize” them within the bounds of international humanitarian law.
Ecuador’s national police chief later announced that authorities had arrested all of the masked intruders. Police commander Cesar Zapata told the TV channel Teleamazonas that 13 people were detained.
Ecuador’s attorney general’s office later said the 13 will be charged with terrorism. Ecuadorian law establishes a penalty of up to 13 years in prison for anyone convicted of terrorism.
The government has not said how many attacks have taken place since authorities announced that Los Choneros gang leader Adolfo Macias, alias “Fito,” was discovered to be missing from his cell in a low-security prison Sunday. He was scheduled to be transferred to a maximum-security facility that day.
On Tuesday, Ecuadorian officials announced that another gang leader, Fabricio Colon Pico of the Los Lobos group, had escaped from a prison in the town of Riobamba. Colon Pico was captured Friday as part of a kidnapping investigation and has also been accused of trying to murder one of the nation’s lead prosecutors.
Other attacks have included an explosion near the house of the president of the National Justice Court and the Monday night kidnappings of four police officers.
Police said one officer was abducted in the capital, Quito, and three in Quevedo city.
Los Choneros is one of the Ecuadorian gangs that authorities consider responsible for a spike in violence, much of it tied to drug trafficking, that reached a new level last year with the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. The gang has links to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, according to authorities.
The whereabouts of Macias are unknown. Prosecutors opened an investigation and charged two guards in connection with his alleged escape, but neither the police, the corrections system nor the federal government confirmed whether the prisoner fled the facility or might be hiding in it.
In February 2013, he escaped from a maximum-security facility but was recaptured weeks later.