The director of the Guayas No. 1 men’s prison was killed on Thursday, September 12, local authorities said. The facility, located in Guayaquil, is the regular scene of bloody mutinies.
The director of Ecuador’s largest prison in Guayaquil, a regular scene of bloody mutinies, was killed on Thursday, September 12, prison watchdog SNAI announced.
“The director of the detention center for men No. 1 in Guayas, María Daniela Icaza, died after an armed attack on the road,” the source told the press, specifying that the official died while being transported to the hospital.
One of the most violent centers in the country
The police “are on the scene to begin investigations that will allow those responsible to be located,” SNAI added on X. The institution also indicated that another official, who was accompanying the director, was injured.
Guayas No. 1, also known as the “Litoral Prison,” is one of the most violent centers in Ecuador, regularly rocked by bloody clashes between inmates and mutinies. More than 460 prisoners have died in the country since 2021.
Guayaquil is one of the most dangerous cities due to the presence of drug trafficking gangs, who fight for control of the drug routes.
This is the second assassination of a prison director in Ecuador in less than ten days: on September 3, Alex Guevara, who was in charge of the penitentiary center of Sucumbios, a northeastern province on the Colombian border, was also killed in an armed attack. Two prison officers were injured.
And two weeks earlier, two other agents had been murdered in Guayaquil on their way to work.
