Ecuador must guarantee security at prisons amid continuing gang violence: UN groups

Two UN committees on Thursday called on Ecuador to guarantee security in the country's prisons, where more than 300 inmates have died since early 2020 in gang violence.

Independent experts from the Committee against Torture and the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture said in a joint statement they were "appalled by the continuing massive violence in Ecuador's prisons".

"Ecuador has the obligation to ensure security inside its prisons by providing appropriate training to a sufficient number of prison officers and developing strategies to reduce violence among inmates," said Claude Heller, who chairs the Committee against Torture.

On November 29, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso extended the state of emergency in the country's prisons for another month.

The presidential decree provides for the "mobilisation" of the police and the army to "reinforce and re-establish order and control" in all the country's prisons.

The head of state declared a state of emergency in the country's prisons on September 29 after the death of 119 inmates in a facility in Gayaquil, the worst such massacre in Latin America.

Some of the prisoners were dismembered, decapitated or burned.

On November 14, 62 other prisoners died in the same prison in new gang violence linked to drug trafficking.

In 2016, the UN Committee Against Torture, a body made up of 10 independent experts, had already expressed its concern about frequent episodes of inter-prisoner violence in Ecuadorian prisons, following its review of the situation in the country.

"In addition to addressing the problem of overcrowding and ending the detainees' self-administration of places of detention, the state needs to provide its national preventive mechanism with sufficient resources to enable it to properly function," said Suzanne Jabbour, chair of the subcommittee.

The subcommittee, comprising 25 independent experts, plans to visit the country in the coming months. It last visited the country in 2014. Ecuador's 65 prisons are 30 per cent overcrowded.

Weapons of all kinds, drugs and mobile phones are circulating in large numbers.

Located between Colombia and Peru, the world's main producers of cocaine, and used as a transit zone for shipments to the United States and Europe, Ecuador is facing a rise in drug-related crime.