The National Comprehensive Care Service (SNAI) for Persons Deprived of Liberty, the penitentiary agency of Ecuadorannounced this Monday that he found a deceased inmate and discovered the escape of 48of which recaptured five, in jail Emeraldscapital of the homonymous province in the northwest of the country and bordering Colombia.

The SNAI stated in a statement that it found a dead prisoner and that 48 inmates had escaped during the police and military intervention carried out on Sunday in this prison that had remained taken over by rioting inmates in a situation that was repeated in at least six other prisons from the country.

On Sunday, more than a thousand military and police personnel entered the interior of that prison to carry out a general search, but after the inspection “the escape of 48 people deprived of liberty was evident,” the source indicated.

The authorities activated protocols that are applied in this type of situation and “the recapture of five” inmates was achieved, the SNAI added in a statement.

The penitentiary institution assured that in the same intervention the “death of a person deprived of liberty who was in that center“, so it was “coordinated with the competent institution to determine the causes of this event.”

Last week, at least seven Ecuadorian prisons were taken over by inmates who, in addition, retained just over 200 prison guards and administrative officials.

On Monday of last week, the president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, signed a “state of exception” decree for 60 days and national scale, to stop violent actions in prisons.

On Tuesday the situation boiled over and The violence also moved to the streets of the country, with explosions, burning vehicles, robberies, assaults and even an invasion of a television channel by armed criminals.in addition to prison riots.

In these simultaneous riots, massive escapes were also recorded such as that of the Riobamba prison, from where 32 inmates escaped, including Fabricio Colón Pico, alleged leader of the criminal gang ‘Los Lobos’ and accused of allegedly planning an attack against the attorney general, Diana Salazar.

It was then that President Noboa signed a decree that recognized an “internal armed conflict” in Ecuador and He ordered that the Armed Forces and the Police neutralize the organized crime gangs accused of the spiral of violence, and which he described as “terrorist groups” and non-belligerent state actors.

The spiral of violence was unleashed a week agojust after Noboa had announced that he was preparing to advance his ‘Phoenix Plan’, with the aim of regaining control of the prisons, many of them dominated by organized crime gangs, where more than 450 prisoners have been murdered. since 2020 in a series of prison massacres between rival groups.

Although the tension experienced last week in Ecuador has decreased in intensity, in the country there are a tense calm due to the fear that violent actions will reappearwhile security forces patrol the streets and maintain operations in prisons under the “state of exception” and “internal armed conflict” in force.