The President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboadeclared Thursday a new state of exception that includes Quito and six of the country’s twenty-four provinces, as well as a municipality in a seventh province, to continue the “internal armed conflict” that he decreed at the start of the year against racketeering gangs.
This new state of exception covers the provinces of Guayas, where Guayaquil -the most populated city in Ecuador-, Los Ríos, El Oro, Manabí, Santa Elena and Orellana, as well as the canton (municipality) of Camilo Ponce Enríquez, a mining enclave in the province of Azuay where different criminal gangs sought to establish themselves. control of illegal mining activities.
These territories were already part of the previous state of exception decreed by Noboain force for three months, with the novelty that Quito is now added, due to “the intensification of hostilities, the commission of crimes and the intensity of the prolonged presence of organized armed groups”, according to the decree presidential.
The objective of this measure is to thwart the activity of criminal gangs and to “contribute to the actions of Armed Forces maintain the sovereignty and integrity of the State and the National Police in the security of citizens, internal protection and public order.
In the areas affected by this state of emergency, and during the 60 days when it will in principle be in force, the rights to the inviolability of home and correspondence, as well as freedom of assembly, are suspended.
The suspension of the right to inviolability of the home will consist of the carry out inspections, searches and searches corresponding actions of the armed forces and the national police, leading to the location and registration of places where people belonging to criminal gangs are hiding.
This state of exception also causes a curfew from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. premises in some of the localities with the highest crime rates and the presence of organized criminal gangs such as Durán, which is part of the metropolitan area of Guayaquil, and Babahoyo and Quevedo, in the province of Los Ríos.
The measure will be re-examined by the Constitutional Court of Ecuador, which in previous months has already twice annulled the state of exception declared by Noboa, considering that this measure “an internal armed conflict” was not a sufficient reason to take this exceptional measure.
Ecuador became the first country in Latin America in homicides per capitawith a rate of 47.2 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023, eight times higher than in 2016, due to the rise in violence by criminal groups, mainly dedicated to drug trafficking, but also to illegal mining .
Since the start of the year, Noboa has elevated the fight against organized crime to the status of “internal armed conflict”, thereby labeling these gangs as terrorist groups and belligerent non-state actors.
According to the government, violent deaths nationwide decreased by 17% in 2024 compared to the previous year, but episodes of criminal violence have not stopped, while kidnappings and extortion continue to be reported .
