By Miguel Rapetti
09 Jun 2024, 11:50 PM EDT
The violence that has taken over Ecuador in recent months had a new chapter this Sunday when armed criminals shot at a group of friends who were on a soccer field in the Ventanas Municipality in Los Ríos, leaving seven dead.
According to local media reports, a total of five young people were left at the scene, victims of multiple gunshot wounds, while the other two died in the hospital to which they were transferred minutes after the shooting, as a result of their injuries.
The residents of the town and survivors of the incident indicated that a group of motorcyclists, between four and six individuals, got out of their vehicles and began to shoot at the group without saying a word, which left the result fatal.
A video circulated on social networks after the attack where the bodies are seen on the floor and relatives around them lamenting the losses.
The attack occurred despite the fact that the province of Los Ríos is within the State of Exception that President Daniel Noboa decreed several weeks ago, as part of his fight against organized crime and to lower levels of insecurity.
The spiral of violence in Ecuador was unleashed last January when the Government was preparing to advance its security plan, with the aim of regaining control of the prisons, many of them dominated by groups of criminals, whose rivalries have left more than 450 prisoners killed since 2020 in a series of prison massacres.
This violence also moved to the streets until Ecuador became one of the most violent countries in the region, with 45 intentional homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023.
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