28 arrested in Ecuador after series of attacks kill 5 police officers

Ecuadorian Interior Minister Juan Zapata said Wednesday that police arrested 28 people after a series of attacks in two cities killed five officers.

The police officers were shot while patrolling the streets, he said.

The violence that took place late Tuesday, prompted President Guillermo Lasso to declare a 9 p.m. curfew under a 45-day state of emergency in the Guayas and Esmeraldas regions.

"What happened between last night and today in Guayaquil and Esmeraldas clearly shows the limits which the trans-national organized crime is willing to surpass," said Lasso. "We are taking actions that worry them, hence the violent reaction."

At least 18 attacks were recorded Tuesday.

The attacks were in response to prisoner transfers from Guayaquil's Litoral Penitentiary, where 119 people died last year in the worst prisoner massacre in the country's history.

Authorities said they recovered "8 firearms, 227 ammunition, 3 rifles, 13 cell phones, 1 motorcycle, 1 vehicle, 3 police clothing, 600 sachets of controlled substances, 3 pistols, 60 detonating capsules and 8 sticks of dynamite," after the attacks.

Although Lasso was headed to vacation in Orlando, Florida, he decided to cancel those plans.

"I canceled the trip due to the critical moment our country is living. We will face this crisis with tough measures within the law," he wrote on Twitter.

In Ecuador, where drug gangs are fighting for power in prisons and streets, eight guards were detained Tuesday in a prison in the oil port of Esmeraldas. They were later released after negotiations, said officials.

There have been nearly one dozen prison massacres in Ecuador with more than 400 inmates killed since February 2021.

Ecuador has the third-highest number of drug seizures in the world, after the US and Colombia, according to a recent report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

The South American nation accounted for 6.5% of cocaine seized in the world in 2020.