Attacks in Ecuador leave 14 dead, 17 injured

Soldiers patrol in a residential area of northern Quito, Ecuador, Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)

Ecuador on Monday reported two attacks that left 14 people dead and 17 wounded, with some of the victims showing signs of torture.

The South American nation is a point of departure for cocaine shipments to the United States and Europe, and a hub for some 20 criminal groups involved in extortion and contract killings.

The first attack occurred around 11 pm Sunday (0400 GMT) in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city and the capital of Guayas province.

As many as seven people got off motorcycles and pickup trucks and fired shots at a neighborhood soccer game, local police colonel Carlos Fuentes told reporters.

The attack, which was attributed to the so-called Freddy Kruger gang, left six dead and 17 injured, including three minors who were at the sporting event.

Police also reported finding eight bodies in the town of Buena Fe, located in the southwestern province of Los Rios.

The victims, four men and four women, had “signs of torture” with their hands tied together with duct tape and “their heads covered in black bags,” according to a local police report.

Local media said the group were part of a larger group of 12 who had travelled to the area from the capital Quito. The other four members of the party, an older women and three girls, remain missing.

Ecuador recorded more than 4,600 homicides in the first half of the year, a 47 per cent increase from the same period of 2024, data from the Ecuadoran Observatory of Organized Crime shows.

Once considered one of Latin America’s safest nations, Ecuador has seen a dramatic surge in violence in recent years as its location between two of the world’s largest cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru, has made it a major transit hub for narcotics.