At least nine people were shot dead on Saturday while playing billiards in a bar in a tourist city in southwest Ecuadorthe prosecution of that country reported.
In the first five months of 2025, Ecuador registered 4,051 homicides, according to official figures. Experts consider that this is the beginning of the most violent year the country has lived in its recent history.
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Lee: Ecuador approves the extradition to the United States of drug trafficker and criminal leader Fito
On Saturday afternoon, a group of armed individuals opened fire against several people who were in a bar in a popular neighborhood of General Villamil Playas, a coastal city of the province of Guayas and frequent destination of local tourists, located 90 kilometers from Guayaquil.
The Ecuadorian Prosecutor’s Office announced on Saturday night that “armed subjects entered the premises and fired against those present.” The accusing entity initiated an investigation to clarify the case.
Viralized images on social networks show at least nine bloody bodies lying on the floor, around several billiards.
Local media ensure that the attackers were armed with automatic rifles. The police have not yet given statements about the details of the massacre.
Violence without truce
The Prefect of Guayas, Marcela Aguiñaga, said in an X message that among the victims was a professor of a football school of the provincial administration.
“Violence does not give truce. It wants to kneel, silence us, get used to horror. But we are not going to shut up. Nor to give up,” said Aguiñaga.
Narco organizations multiply in Ecuador, where the homicide rate grew from 6 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018 to 38 per 100,000 in 2024.
After the recapture in June of the largest drug trafficking hood in the country, Adolfo Macías, aka Fito, after his escape from a maximum security prison in 2024, the violence of the criminal gangs does not cease.
This week, in the province of Manabí (west), bastion of aka Fito and its band Los Choneros, at least 20 people died in different massacres and murders in several cities, including Manta, where Fito was recaptured.
Saturday afternoon, Interior Minister John Reimberg announced a security reinforcement in that city, one of the main fishing ports in Ecuador, with 2,500 police officers “deployed at strategic points.”
After his arrest, Fito agreed to be extradited to the United States. The Prosecutor’s Office of that country accuses him of cocaine and weapons traffic.
Ecuador, once an oasis of peace in Latin America, is today one of the most violent nations in the region because of the war between bands that take advantage of its strategic ports, its dollarized economy and the corruption of some authorities.
For its ports, 73% of the cocaine produced in the world, according to official sources. In 2024 the country seized the record of 294 tons of drugs, mainly cocaine, compared to 221 tons of 2023.
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