13 inmates die in violence-plagued Ecuador prison

Police officers stand guard at a prison entrance in Machala, Ecuador, after a deadly riot on Sunday. (LUIS SUAREZ/AFP via Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Thirteen inmates died at the weekend in a prison in Ecuador that has seen 44 killed in violence in the past month, authorities said Monday.

The deaths occurred Sunday at a prison in the coastal city of Machala in the southwest of the country and are now under investigation.

The state prison authority SNAI said in a statement that the bodies were found by police after “the detonation of an explosive device” outside the prison.

According to local media reports, the deaths were the result of asphyxiation.

The explosion, about 100 metres (328 feet) from the prison, was caused by a drone used to distract prison guards, the reports said.

SNAI said autopsies and “routine procedures” were being carried out to determine the causes of death.

Thirty-one inmates died in the same prison last month, many by asphyxiation, after a deadly armed riot. At the end of September, 14 others, including one prison guard, died in another armed confrontation there.

Mass killings are common in Ecuador’s prisons, which have become operational centres for rival drug-trafficking gangs. Periodically, images of mutilated or burned bodies in its prisons go viral on social media.

According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), at least 663 prisoners have died in violence inside Ecuadorian prisons since 2020.

President Daniel Noboa advocates a hardline policy against organized crime, similar to that of his Salvadoran counterpart, Nayib Bukele, and in 2024 he declared the country to be in a state of internal armed conflict to confront the cartels.