Ecuador’s new levels of fear, soldiers roam streets of biggest cities

This screen grab of live video from the TC Television network shows a masked, armed person standing over journalists during a live broadcast, in Guayaquil, Ecuador, Tuesday, January 9. (TC Television network via AP)

Schools and stores sat shuttered, many people stayed home and soldiers roamed the streets of Ecuador’s biggest cities on Wednesday, the day after armed gang members who invaded a television station during a live broadcast aroused new levels of fear in a nation experiencing a striking wave of criminal violence.

Much of Ecuador simmered with tension following the attack at public channel TC Television in Guayaquil, a coastal city that is considered the country’s most violent. Military personnel and tanks guarded hospitals, public transit and newsrooms there and in the capital city, Quito.

The hooded intruders who stormed TV Television’s offices and studio with guns and explosives unleashed at least 15 minutes of threats and assaults against journalists and other employees. No one was killed, and police quickly intervened and arrested 13 people.

Even in a country where a presidential candidate was assassinated last year, however, the brazen daytime show of force broadcast into Ecuadorians’ homes and workplaces was unprecedented. It brought an immediate response from the government.

President Daniel Noboa, who came into power in November with a promise to bring peace to the South American country, issued a decree saying the nation had entered an “internal armed conflict”. The declaration prompted some analysts to describe the attack as a watershed moment for Ecuador.

Soldiers patrol outside the government palace during a state of emergency in Quito, Ecuador, on Tuesday, January 9. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)

“We are fighting for national peace, we are fighting against terrorist groups that are more than 20,000 people,” Noboa said in a interview with a local radio station on Wednesday.

Police said they had arrested at least 70 people as of Wednesday morning for alleged terrorist acts, including the 13 who were apprehended at the TV station. TC Television’s mid-afternoon newscast was under way when the armed group burst in.

First, a man with a pistol appeared in the middle of the public TV station’s live transmission, followed by a second man with a shotgun, then a third and more. With the show’s “After the News” title behind them, station employees were brought on to the set and ordered to lie down. Screams could be heard followed by the sound of gunshots.

“We are on air, so you know that you cannot play with the mafia,” one of the assailants is heard saying.

Masked men could be seen aiming guns at news staff. Someone said: “Don’t shoot!” After about 15 minutes the transmission was cut.

Alina Manrique, the head of news for TC Television, was ordered to get on the floor. With a gun aimed at her head.

“I thought about my entire life, about my two children,” she told The Associated Press after the ordeal had ended.

“I am still in shock,” Manrique said. “Everything has collapsed … All I know is that it’s time to leave this country and go very far away.”

Shortly after the assailants stormed the TV station, Noboa issued a decree designating as terrorist groups 20 drug-trafficking gangs operating in the country, and authorising Ecuador’s military to “neutralise” them within the bounds of international humanitarian law.

This screen grab of live video from the TC Television network shows a masked, armed person standing over journalists during a live broadcast, in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on Tuesday, January 9. (TC Television network via AP)

A series of attacks, including the kidnapping of police officers, have rocked Ecuador since the president on Monday imposed a national state of emergency, a move that allows authorities to suspend people’s rights and mobilise the military in places like prisons.

Noboa’s action followed the apparent escape from prison of Llos Choneros gang leader Adolfo Macías, alias ‘Fito’, on Sunday. Authorities say Los Choneros, one of the Ecuadorian gangs considered responsible for a spike in violence mostly tied to drug trafficking, has links with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Macías’ whereabouts are unknown. The government has said at least 30 attacks have taken place since he was discovered missing from his cell in a low-security prison where he was serving a 36-year sentence for drug trafficking, murder and organised crime. He was scheduled to be transferred to a maximum security facility that day.

The head of the Armed Forces Joint Command told journalists on Tuesday that the recent attacks were the gangs’ reactions to the government’s moves against them.

“They have unleashed a wave of violence to frighten the population,” Adm. Jaime Vela said.

Will Freeman, a political analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, said while gangs in Ecuador previously assassinated presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio and set off car bombs in front of government buildings, Tuesday’s events marked a new peak of violence.

“This is a turning point,” Freeman said. “Depending on how the government responds, it will set the precedent for these kinds of incidents to continue, or it will use this as a catalyst and make some very necessary structural reforms so that the state can start to win its war against crime.”

The National Police of Ecuador reported on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday that it had secured the release of three officers who were abducted by criminal gangs earlier in the week, recaptured 17 escaped prisoners, and seized explosives, cartridges, weapons and vehicles during raids throughout the country.

Ecuadorian officials on Tuesday announced that another gang leader, Fabricio Colón Pico of the Los Lobos group, had escaped from a prison in the town of Riobamba. Colón Pico was captured Friday as part of a kidnapping investigation and has also been accused of trying to murder one of the nation’s lead prosecutors.

Located on South America’s Pacific coast between Peru and Colombia, the world’s largest cocaine producers, Ecuador has become a key transit point for the drug in recent years. Much of the violence suffered by the country comes as drug gangs fight each other and the government for control of ports and smuggling routes.