EBN- Ecuador’s president declared war against criminal gangs after days of violence across the country culminated in an attack on a television studio.
The South American country has witnessed over the past few days heavily armed clashes, prompting the country’s president to declare a state of “internal armed conflict.”
A group of gangsters stormed a television studio during a live broadcast amid a series of seemingly coordinated attacks.
Police special forces later arrested all the masked gunmen who invaded the headquarters of the TC Televisión network in Ecuador’s largest city, Guayaquil, at about 2pm local time on Tuesday.
Toting pistols, shotguns, machine guns, grenades and sticks of dynamite, a number of men overran the studio during the El Noticiero news programme. With the cameras broadcasting live, the men could be seen on camera while some employees lay down on the floor and someone was heard yelling “Don’t shoot!” before the signal was eventually cut.
Ecuador is one of the world’s top banana exporters, but also exports oil, coffee, cocoa, shrimps and fish products.
A surge in violence in the Andean nation, inside and outside its prisons, has been linked to fighting between drug cartels, both foreign and local, over control of cocaine routes to the US and Europe.
In Peru, the government ordered the immediate deployment of a police force to the border to prevent any instability spilling.
The US has said it condemns the “brazen attacks” in Ecuador and is “co-ordinating closely” with President Daniel Noboa and his Ecuadorean government and stands “ready to provide assistance”.
