Tag: Guayaquil

Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa told the media that the recent gang violence in his country is a problem for the entire world.

Ecuador’s newest president has only been president since November, but now he has to deal with the country’s biggest problem in recent history.

There were some bad days when two gang leaders got away from jail, prison guards were kept as hostages, and bombs were set off in many cities in the country.

The day after Mr. Noboa declared a state of emergency, some men with guns entered the TC television studios in Guayaquil and threatened the staff while the TV show was on.

In an interview with the BBC during his first visit to Guayaquil since the violence, the president admitted that it will be very difficult to restore peace to the country.

“He says he didn’t expect it to be easy when he signed up for this, and now he’s at the conflicted port city’s waterfront. ”

“We can’t keep playing this game that these terrorist groups are trying to start. ”

“Now, he says that changes are happening. ” He said that there is a serious problem with violence in the Andean nation because drug gangs are fighting each other.

He told his army to stop 22 armed groups that he called terrorist organizations.

And Washington is willing to help. A group of people from the US government, including police, soldiers, and diplomats, will be coming to Ecuador soon. His critics think the US is getting involved too much, but President Noboa supports the decision.

“He’s happy to see that other countries are starting to notice what’s happening here. ” He smiled”It has an impact all over the world: the drug terrorists here also operate in Europe and the US. ”

“We have to fix the problem from the beginning, and the beginning of the problem is here,” he says.

There are still some big problems after the chaotic and violent scenes.

First, about 180 prison officers are still being held by criminal gangs inside different prisons. Their families are feeling more and more worried and have protested in the capital, Quito.

I asked Mr. Noboa what his government was doing to get the hostages back since he has said that he won’t negotiate with the gangs because hostage-taking is the “ugly side of war. ”

“I can’t tell you exactly what we’re going to do,” he says, “but we’re always talking to the military and the police. ” We will try our best to bring those people back home.

Another question is where a well-known drug gang leader named Adolfo Macias Villamar, also known as Fito, is. The leader of the Choneros gang escaped from prison earlier this week and it seems to have caused a lot of the fighting after that.

President Noboa admitted that his forces do not know where he is yet.

At the moment, we are searching for him. We are following up on some clues with the military and getting help from other countries.

His government says they will keep searching for the leader who ran away and for Fabricio Colon Pico, the head of another gang who is also on the run, until they find them.

This week has shown that Ecuador has some serious problems. Criminal groups in Ecuador are working with powerful Mexican gangs to sneak lots of cocaine out of the country and into the US and Europe through ports like Guayaquil.

Finding drugs in the shipping containers is not enough. President Noboa wants to improve the checks in the country’s ports.

The gangs have made a lot of money and used it to influence the courts, politicians, and prisons. The president wants to make big changes in the next few years. His critics think he’s trying to do something very difficult with not much experience in politics.

“I think we can win,” he said, “and I’ll keep fighting until we do. ”

The president’s team is sharing a cool new tourism campaign for Ecuador. It’s meant to convince people from other countries to come see the beautiful mountains of the Andes.

The world has seen a bad side of the country this week as it continues to have more fighting and less stability. A country that might be becoming a “narco-state” and failing.

President Noboa disagrees with that idea, and he is determined to prevent it from happening.

“We are working hard every day to prevent this place from becoming controlled by drug criminals. ”

To do that, even his biggest fans would agree that he has a lot of work to do.

Slowly and with nervousness, things are starting to get back to normal in Guayaquil.

Only a few people in the city have fully recovered from the shock and chaos of this week. It was a very unforgettable moment for everyone in the city.

But Dina Moreno can’t stay at home anymore because she doesn’t have enough money. She sells phone accessories at the big market in Guayaquil. Like others, she has opened her business to start working again.

“I have never seen anything like it,” she remembers with a shiver. “When we saw trouble at the TV station and heard gunshots, everyone panicked and closed their shops to go home. ”

As Dina talks, her seven-year-old son plays with some phone covers. City schools are still closed because of gang violence. Dina didn’t make any money for two days, so she had to bring her son to work.

The same thing is happening in other parts of the big market. Street food sellers, delivery boys, and a person reading from the Bible are making the place noisy and busy again. This hasn’t happened since the attack.

The threat of drug-gang violence is still present. One seller, Jorge, said that the stall owners were all taking care of each other under the big white covers of the market, looking for any hint of trouble or the return of armed men to the streets.

“I’m not afraid of dying,” he said confidently. “I want Ecuador to be peaceful again. ”

However, Andres is not able to go back to his usual business in Guayaquil, even though other small businesses are trying to. His brother is one of 178 prison workers, most of them guards, who are still being held captive by the gangs.

“We have only heard from the guards who were able to escape. ” “They are the only ones who have said that our family members are alright,” he says to me from outside the Ambato prison, where he has been waiting for hours to hear any updates.

The police will let the worried family know they are waiting for permission to go into the prison. Andres says he hasn’t seen them do anything for days.

He says that the guards had told them something bad was going to happen in the prison, but the people in charge didn’t listen.

The government says the country is in a war with the gangs and won’t give in to threats from inside or outside the prisons. “President Daniel Noboa said that taking people as hostages is a terrible part of war. ”

But Andres is not comforted by that. He says the government is not doing enough and has forgotten about his brother.

“I just hope they don’t use them as disposable soldiers,” he says.

During a very chaotic situation, the most bold act of gang violence happened in the TC television studio in Guayaquil. Armed men held the staff hostage and showed their weapons to the journalists while they were on live TV.

During the scary situation, the host Jose Luis Calderon told the gang members to stay calm, even though they were holding a shotgun to his head and putting dynamite in his pocket.

“He said he felt surprisingly relaxed even though he knew we were in danger,” he remembered when we saw him later. Jose Luis told how he and some coworkers hid in a bathroom because they heard shouting and gunshots. However, they were quickly found and forced to join the rest of the staff on the set at gunpoint.

“They sent children, heavily armed, to make people scared, unsure, and worried, and to cause chaos,” he says. “They were there to show that they can come in and control one of the largest media companies in the country. ”

The police have arrested many gang members. During the night, not many people are on the streets of Guayaquil because of a curfew. But during the day, more people are out and about, going about their usual business.

As the days go by after a very scary event, it seems like Ecuador is going back to normal.

The danger is that it is rapidly heading towards a long-lasting armed fight and getting closer to becoming a complete “narco-state”.