Five tourists were murdered in Ecuador because they were thought to be members of a rival gang – angry President Noboa

Five of him were kidnapped and murdered on the beach Ayabé in the southwestern Ecuador, after perpetrators mistakenly thought tourists were members of a rival gang, with President Daniel Noboa today expressing his “relationship to the families” of the victims. Ecuador’s president said in X’s account that a person was arrested in a case that shows that drug dealers “are seeking to sow terror.” “We will not rest until we find the others,” Noboa said. About 20 gunmen in total are involved in the kidnapping of tourists, according to local police commander Richard Vaka. Among the group of tourists, who arrived in Ayabe on Thursday afternoon, were six adults and five children. The victims were subjected to “interrogations,” said Commander Vaka. The bodies of five adults were found with bullet wounds hours later on a nearby street. The police commander stressed that the perpetrators “obviously confused these people by thinking they belong to a rival gang”. Cualquier ataque contra un ecutoriano es un ataque al Ecuador. Lo sucedido en Santa Elena y Manabí nos recuerda que la batalla continúa. La Policía Nacional se encuentra desplegada y como resultado hemos capturado a uno de los secuestradrares de Ayampe, no descansaremos hasta… — Daniel Noboa Azin (@DanielNoboaOk) Noboa, 36, who was elected in November as the youngest president in the country’s history, is faced with an unprecedented wave of violence since 7 January, when from the Wayaquil prison (southwest) escaped the public danger number 1 in Ecuador, the head of the country’s most powerful gang, José Adolfo Massia, or “Fito”. He remains inconceivable as this stage. The escape of “Fito” was followed by riots in many Ecuadorian prisons and an outbreak of gang violence on the streets – bomb blasts, murders, as well as an invasion of masked armed in a television studio amid a live broadcast. To put the situation under control, the right-wing president of Ecuador’s Noboa declared the country an emergency and “war” with gangs, developing 20,000 members of the armed forces inside. Despite the measures, armed violence has not stopped. Yesterday Friday, four people, including a military man, were murdered in Manda City, Manabi. Last weekend, the mayor of San Vicente, in the same province, was murdered by gunfire. On Wednesday, a riot in a prison in Wayaquil (southwest) resulted in three dead and six injured. Once an oasis of peace and calm in Latin America, Ecuador, between Colombia and Peru, the two countries with the world’s largest cocaine production, has been torn apart in recent years by a wave of gang violence that claim to control traffic and prison routes. From 2018 to 2023, the homicide index took off, increased by nearly 800%, reaching from 6 to 46 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. In 2023, authorities counted over 7,800 homicides.