A shooting attack left 12 people dead Sunday evening after gunmen opened fire at a local bar near the town of El Empalme in the Pacific coastal province of Guayas.
A group of heavily armed gunmen arrived outside the bar at 2300 and opened fire indiscriminately into the crowd of patrons.
At least another ten were wounded in the attack.
The same assailants reportedly fired on another group of bystanders while fleeing the scene of the first attack, killing another two, including a 12-year-old boy.
The National Police of Ecuador (Spanish abbr: PNE) have attributed the attack to fighting between rival organized crime gangs.
The town of El Empalme, as well as Guayas Province in general, has become the epicenter of violent gang confrontations as rival drug gangs fight over key smuggling routes to the Pacific port city of Guayaquil.
One of the country’s most powerful drug gangs is Los Choneros, based in Guayaquil.
Their rivals, Los Tiguerones, who broke off from Los Choneros, are based in the northwestern coastal city of Esmeraldas.
Gunmen routinely carry out targeted attacks at local bars and entertainment establishments, often with disregard for bystanders who may be caught in the crossfire.
On 19 July, nine people were killed following a shooting attack at a billiard hall in the coastal municipality of Playas, about 56 miles southwest of Guayaquil.
The gangs fight each other, and even separate factions for control of territory and extortion rackets.
Internecine fighting between two rival factions of Los Tiguerones left 22 people dead on 6 March in Guayaquil.
The bloodshed began at 1500 when a group of 20 gunmen broke into houses and opened fire on rivals in the district of Nueva Prosperina on the northern outskirts of Guayaquil.
It was the deadliest massacre in the country in recent memory.
Authorities blamed the killings on a turf war between two factions of Los Tiguerones: Los Fenix and Los Igualitos.
In response, the PNE staged a series of safehouse raids in Nueva Prosperina, arresting more than 30 alleged gang members.
The massacre came just four days after President Daniel Noboa extended the country’s state of emergency for another month to address rising gang violence throughout the country.
Noboa had originally declared a 60-day state of emergency on 3 October in the coastal provinces of Guayas, Manabi, Los Rios, Santa Elena, El Oro and in the canton of Camilo Ponce Enriquez in the south-central province of Azuay.
The eastern province of Orellana and the Metropolitan District of Quito were also included in the state of emergency.
This is the second time he has extended the state of emergency.
In 2023, Ecuador led Latin America in homicides with 8,248, an almost 75 percent increase from the previous year. Though in 2024 the number dropped to just below 7,000, this January registered a total of 731 murders, the highest amount ever recorded in a single month.
The internecine gang warfare, fought over access to drug-export instrumentalities, as well as control of local trafficking and illegal mining, has led to a significant increase in homicides involving multiple victims.
Some gangs are made up mainly of Venezuelans affiliated with the Venezuelan transnational gang Tren de Aragua, while others have ties to Mexican cartels and Colombian crime organizations.
In January 2024, Noboa declared 22 gangs as terrorist groups, authorizing the military to begin targeting the gangs.
Los Lobos, another breakaway from Los Choneros, are believed to have ties to Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Spanish abbr: CJNG) and are active in 16 of the country’s 24 provinces.
In the city of Duran, located across the Guayas River from Guayaquil, the Los Chones Killers and their rivals the Latin Kings street gang routinely engage in bloody turf wars.
In addition to homicides, recently released figures by the PNE highlight the rapidly growing problem of kidnapping for ransom.
Some 3,292 ransom kidnappings were recorded throughout Ecuador from January through December of last year, with Guayaquil tallying 1,118 abductions, almost a third of the country’s total. This represented a 25 percent increase from the number registered in the same period in 2023.
Guayaquil is in the midst of one of its worst years on record with regard to reported kidnappings, with no signs that the situation will be improving in the near future.
Recent figures released by the PNE registered 787 reported abductions in the city in the first five months of the year, an increase of 43 percent from last year.
An average of five kidnappings are reported every day in the city.
Guayaquil, and the surrounding province of Guayas, alone account for some 50 percent of all kidnappings in the country.
The city’s south-central districts, and the northern districts of Florida and Pascuales, are especially troublesome.
Motorists who commute on the Guayaquil-Daule highway (E48) are also at an especially high risk for abductions.
In the northwest, the working-class slum of Nueva Prosperina is particularly problematic.
Kidnapping is also especially rampant in Duran Canton, just east of Guayaquil across the Guayas River.
Many kidnappings are related to extortion demands made against local business owners by the region’s various organized crime gangs, such as Los Lobos, the Tiguerones and the Chone Killers.
Kidnapping gangs often target business owners or family members, though urban victims typically are upper-middle-class Ecuadoran businessmen who fail to follow reasonable precautions.
Foreigners are taken on occasion.
Ransom demands have ranged from $50,000 to as high as $700,000.
Besides Guayas, the most affected provinces include the northern provinces of Pichincha (where Quito is located) and Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas, the central province of Los Rios, the western province of Manabi and the southwestern province of El Oro.
Extortions in Ecuador skyrocketed from 6,651 reported cases in 2022 to more than 20,290 in 2024, though many extortions go unreported due to fear of reprisal by criminal gangs.
Personnel should continue to take stringent precautions against crime.
The US State Department’s current threat level for Ecuador is Level 2—Exercise Increased Caution.
The advisory specifically advised against travel to El Oro, Los Rios, Sucumbios, Manabi, Santa Elena, Santo Domingo and Esmeraldas provinces. Americans also are advised to avoid travel to the canton of Duran in Guayas province and south of Portete de Tarqui Avenue in Guayaquil.
This service strongly concurs with the advisory.
It is worth noting that many corporate managers fit the upper-middle-class profile. They should be given defensive training, to include protective-driving training. Reasonable precautions suffice for foreigners
