Nine people were killed after dozens of shooters arrived in boats and taxis and opened fire at a port in northern Ecuador near the Colombian border, the public prosecutor said on Tuesday. Interior Minister Juan Zapata told the Ecuavisa television channel that the attack was carried out by about 30 heavily armed individuals and was linked to organized‑crime gangs. He said the attackers came in two boats and in vehicles, and that between 1,500 and 2,000 people were present in the port at the time of the morning shooting.
According to Zapata, the violence stemmed from a rivalry between criminal groups: fishermen who “preferred the security” of one organization were targeted by a rival gang in retaliation. The public prosecutor’s tweet confirmed that seven bodies were recovered from the Artisanal Fishing Port in the Esmeraldas district, with two more found at a nearby health centre and taken to the local morgue. One of the taxis used to transport the attackers was discovered abandoned in the port and was seized by police, the prosecutor added in another tweet.
The impoverished Esmeraldas province has been under a state of emergency since March 3 because of high levels of crime and violence. Ecuador, situated between Colombia and Peru—the world’s two largest cocaine producers—serves as a transit point for much of the drug trade destined for the United States and Europe. Consequently, the country has experienced a recent surge in drug‑related violence and murders, with the homicide rate nearly doubling from 14 per 100,000 citizens in 2021 to 25 a year later.
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