Voice 9, International Desk: Six convicts were killed Friday during a disturbance inside a Guayaquil prison, the latest deadly unrest to hit Ecuador's penitentiary system.
"An event occurred" in one of the cellblocks of the Guayas 1 jail, "resulting in six dead people," according to the SNAI national prison administration.
The public prosecutor's office, working with police and the military, stated they were "executing security protocols... in light of the disturbance that occurred Friday afternoon."
It said on X, formerly Twitter, that "in the coming hours, specialised military personnel will carry out the first raids and reconnaissance of Cellblock 7, where the incidents originated, in order to take control of the situation."
Guayas 1 is one of five facilities that make up a large prison complex in Guayaquil, a key port city that has become one of the country's increasingly bloody centers of a turf war between rival drug-trafficking gangs. In late July, a riot in the Guayas 1 prison left more than 30 people dead.
Guillermo Lasso, the right-wing president who was in New York for personal reasons on Thursday, said on X that he would "immediately convene the Security Cabinet."
"I will return to Ecuador in the coming hours to deal with this emergency." "There will be no complicity or cover-up here, only the truth," he continued.
