Masked men broke onto the set of a public television channel in Ecuador waving guns and explosives during a live broadcast Tuesday, and the president issued a decree declaring that the South American country had entered an “internal armed conflict.”
The men armed with pistols and what looked like sticks of dynamite entered the set of the TC Television network in the port city of Guayaquil during a news program that was airing live in thousands of homes across the nation and shouted that they had bombs.
Authorities have not said who was behind the television station occupation, or a series of other attacks that have shaken the South American country recently, but the incidents follow the apparent prison escapes of two of Ecuador’s most powerful drug gang leaders.
Los Choneros is one of the Ecuadorian gangs that authorities consider responsible for a spike in violence, much of tied to drug trafficking, that reached a new level last year with the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.
Prosecutors opened an investigation and charged two guards in connection with his alleged escape, but neither the police, the corrections system, nor the federal government confirmed whether the prisoner fled the facility or might be hiding in it.
Los Choneros and other similar groups linked to Mexican and Colombian cartels are fighting over drug trafficking routes and control of territory, including from within detention facilities, where at least 400 inmates have died since 2021, according to authorities.
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