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Sweeping security measures designed to empower police and armed forces against organised crimeEcuadoreans will vote on Sunday in a referendum on a raft of unprecedented security measures designed to empower the police and armed forces in the fight against spiralling violence and organised crime.Voters must accept or reject 11 questions, mostly about security, in the plebiscite, which is being seen as a test of...

El Niño weather phenomenon depletes reservoirs and limits output at hydroelectric plantsEcuador has begun to ration electricity in the country’s main cities as a drought linked to the El Niño weather pattern depletes reservoirs and limits output at hydroelectric plants that produce about 75% of the nation’s power.“We urge Ecuadorians to cut their electricity consumption in this critical week,” the ministry of energy said...

Ecuadorian police forced their way inside embassy in Quito to arrest former vice-president who was seeking asylum in MexicoMexico is demanding that the United Nations expel Ecuador from the world body as part of a complaint to the top UN court over a police raid last week on the Mexican embassy in Quito.Tensions between Mexico and Ecuador have soared since late last week when...

Andrés Manuel López Obrador condemns assault by Ecuadorian officers, who dragged out ex-vice-president sheltering in missionThe Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has condemned what he described as a “despicable authoritarian” assault on his country’s embassy in Quito and released dramatic images showing Ecuadorian security forces dragging the country’s former vice-president from the building.Jorge Glas, Ecuador’s vice-president from 2013 until 2018, sought shelter at...

Jorge Glas brought to naval hospital from maximum security prison three days after his controversial capture in Mexican embassyEcuador’s former vice-president Jorge Glas has reportedly been taken to hospital from the maximum security jail where he was being held – three days after the politician was captured inside Mexico’s embassy in Quito during a police raid that drew outrage across Latin America.Glas, 54, was...

António Guterres voices ‘alarm’ as Latin American governments sharply criticise Quito’s move to arrest former vice-presidentThe UN secretary general, António Guterres, has added his voice to a torrent of criticism of Ecuador’s decision to storm the Mexican embassy in Quito in order to arrest the former vice-president Jorge Glas.“The secretary general is alarmed at the forced entry of Ecuadorian security forces into the premises...

Ecuadorian police forcibly enter the embassy in Quito to detain former vice-president Jorge GlasMexico has suspended diplomatic ties with Ecuador after police forcibly broke into the country’s embassy in Quito to detain former Ecuadorian vice-president Jorge Glas, deepening a diplomatic rift between the two countries.Glas, convicted twice for corruption, had been holed up in the embassy in Quito since seeking political asylum in December,...

César Suárez killed in brazen daylight attack in Guayaquil as country shaken by dramatic recent surge in violenceHow Ecuador was plunged into chaos and bloodshedThe public prosecutor who was leading the investigation into the on-air assault on an Ecuadorian television station has been shot and killed in a brazen daylight attack in the crime-ridden city of Guayaquil.César Suárez, who focused on cases involving organized...

Just a few years ago it was one of the most peaceful countries in Latin America. But last week drug gangs stormed a live TV broadcast and unleashed a wave of terror. Tom Phillips reportsCompared with its fellow Latin American countries Colombia and Mexico – which for decades have been destabilised by violent drug gangs – Ecuador was calm and peaceful. But a wave...

Presidency makes announcement nearly a week after wave of violence hit South American countryScores of hostages have been released from Ecuador’s gang-controlled prisons, the government has claimed, nearly a week after the South American country was shaken by a massive wave of violence.“All of the hostages have been freed,” the Ecuadorian presidency announced on social media on Saturday night. Continue reading...

After criminals storm TV station and take prison guards hostage, Daniel Noboa pledges to stop his country becoming a narco-stateEcuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, has denied that his government is embarking on an indiscriminate campaign to hunt down and kill gang members, as the South American country continues to reel from a week of chaos and deadly violence that he has classified as a war.In...

As cartels and crime syndicates flock to Ecuador for cocaine trade profits, its murder rate has soared, with a TV station assault the crescendo of a week of bloodshedPolitical upheaval and street protests, gun battles and floods. José Luis Calderón has seen it all during his 23 years as one of Guayaquil’s top television journalists. Never had the Ecuadorean reporter been the story himself.That...

Guayaquil eerily quiet as armed forces patrol in wake of stunning wave of arson, bombings and prison riots that killed as many as 15Ecuador’s largest city has been transformed into a virtual ghost town by a stunning wave of criminal violence that prompted the South American country’s recently elected president to declare his country was in “a state of war”.On Thursday, the streets of...

Daniel Noboa designates nearly two dozen gangs as terrorist groups after wave of violence across countryEcuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, said on Wednesday that his country was “at war” with drug gangs who are holding more than 130 prison staff hostage and who briefly captured a TV station live on air, in a wave of violence that has left city streets deserted.At least 10 people...

President declares state of ‘internal armed conflict’ as gang leader escapes from jail and gunmen invade TV studioGang storms Ecuador’s TC Televisión studioFew Ecuadoreans were prepared for just how swiftly and steeply the security situation in their country could plummet. Murder and violence linked to drug trafficking has soared, as the country has become one of the most dangerous in Latin America.Until just a...

Ecuador’s president has declared a state of “internal armed conflict”. How did the country find itself in the grip of armed gangs?• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First EditionGood morning. At about 2pm local time yesterday, a live news broadcast on an Ecuadorian TV channel was interrupted by a group of masked men carrying guns, grenades, and dynamite. The intruders pointed guns...

Gangsters unleashed wave of terror following move by President Daniel Noboa in response to gang leader’s prison escape‘We should treat it as a war’: Ecuador’s descent into drug gang violenceHeavily armed gangsters have stormed the studio of a major television station in Ecuador during a live broadcast, prompting the country’s president to declare a state of “internal armed conflict” amid a series of seemingly...

Huge manhunt under way after Adolfo Macías of Los Choneros disappears from cell and guards taken hostage amid prison riotsEcuador has declared a state of emergency after one of the country’s most dangerous criminals vanished from his cell and prison guards were overpowered and taken hostage amid riots at prisons across the country.A huge manhunt was under way on Monday as thousands of soldiers...