Ecuador prison overhaul leads to tragedy
The Machala prison became the location of one of the deadliest prison massacres in Ecuador's history.
In less than 24 hours, 31 inmates were killed during a nationwide prison reorganization effort that, instead of restoring order, appears to have increased violence, News.Az reports citing foreign media.
Officers from Ecuador's national prison service, the National Service for Comprehensive Attention (SNAI), found 27 bodies showing signs of death by hanging during an inspection on the night of Sunday, Nov. 9. Hours earlier, four other inmates had been killed in clashes. No firearms or explosives were used, only improvised ropes, quiet and deliberate violence and a pattern of extermination that has become recurrent in Ecuador's prisons.
The massacre occurred amid a structural reform launched in July 2025, when President Daniel Noboa and Interior Minister John Reimberg announced a nationwide prison reorganization.
The redistribution process has triggered internal tensions, disrupted balances of power among criminal groups and provoked retaliatory attacks. Earlier clashes that same Sunday left 33 people injured, including a police officer, El Comercio reported.
The plan includes hiring 10,000 new prison staff and transferring certain facilities to the exclusive control of either the National Police or the Armed Forces. It also calls for moving high-risk inmates to the new maximum-security prison El Encuentro in Santa Elena, which is modeled after facilities in El Salvador.
Interior Minister John Reimberg confirmed the transfer of inmates to the new prison. "Today they are being moved to something no one had dared to do before, to a maximum-security prison where the party is over. The days of giving orders from inside the prisons or taking orders from outside from certain interested sectors have ended," he said.
Similar news
