Ecuador Declares State of Emergency After Violent Crime Wave Claims Local Mayor

The president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, declared a state of emergency in three of the country’s provinces on Monday following a wave of violence over the weekend that left several dead, including Mayor of Manta Agustín Intriago.

The decree imposes a 60-day curfew in the Manabí, Los Ríos, and Durán provinces of the country, establishing a late-night curfew and commanding a 155-percent increase in the number of police officers in Durán, resulting in an increase from 470 to 1,200 officers.

President of Ecuador Guillermo Lasso (Agencia Press South/Getty Images)

The decree also limits the right to freedom of assembly and suspends the right to inviolability of domicile and right to the inviolability of correspondence sent or received in the affected areas — giving police the power to break up groups of people, enter their homes, or open their mail.

Lasso’s decree states that an increase in “murders, homicides, hired killings, extortions and robberies” this year have necessitated the measures.

“This declaration is given due to the increase in crime and violence rates, as well as the activities of organized crime groups whose practices have intensified, events whose escalation puts at risk the safety of citizens, their integrity and their lives,” the emergency declaration read.

“This situation requires an urgent and emergent intervention of the State institutions to safeguard security and guarantee the rights of citizens, public order and social peace,” the statement continued.

Lasso’s declaration cited statistics from Ecuador’s National Directorate of Investigation of Crimes against Life, Violent Deaths, Disappearances, Kidnapping and Extortion (DINASED), which registered 121 cases of intentional homicides in Durán between January 1 and July 1 of this year — up from 78 during that same period in 2022. The emergency declaration stated that 31 murders have so far been registered in Durán between June and July.

Last year, Ecuador registered 4,603 violent deaths by the end of the year, an average rate of 12.6 homicides per day. The South American nation is on track to surpass last year’s total registered homicides, as it already registered 3,568 violent deaths during the first half of 2023 alone — a rate of 19.6 homicides per day.

On Sunday, an armed shooter assassinated the recently elected Intriago while Intriago carried out an inspection of sewerage works in one of Manta’s neighborhoods. Ariana Estefanía Chancay, a young Ecuadorian soccer player, was also killed in the attack. Chancay was reportedly approaching the mayor to ask for help with her sport at the time of the attack.

“Impunity is a big problem in Ecuador, even more so if murder cases are not solved and the killers are released a few hours later,” Lasso said during the signing of the emergency declaration. “Every effort of the police is worthless.”

Intriago, of the local Better City Movement party, was reelected for a four-year term in February’s elections with over 60 percent of the vote, defeating Jaime Estrada Medranda of the left-wing Citizen Revolution party, who obtained 30 percent of the votes.

The murder of the 38-year-old mayor is the latest in a series of attacks against Ecuadorian mayors. In May, the Mayor of Durán Luis Chonillo was attacked while driving his vehicle, leaving two police officers and a civilian dead and four injured. Days after the attack, Chonillo announced that he had left the country and would carry out his work remotely until local police could guarantee his security. This month, the mayor of Daule, Wilson Cañizares, denounced having received threats from prison inmates at the Litoral penitentiary.

In addition to Intriago’s murder, six inmates died and eleven were injured during a prison riot this weekend at the Guayas 1 prison, located in Guayaquil. Following the riots, more than 90 police officers remain apprehended by the inmates across several of the nation’s prisons.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.