QUITO, July 11, 2024 (AFP) – A volcano in central Ecuador spewed a cloud of ash Wednesday that fell on four towns as residents reported hearing rumblings and loud bangs. The Sangay volcano, some 195 kilometers (120 miles) from the capital Quito, has been in a state of near-constant, mainly low-level activity since 1628, according to the Geophysical Institute. In 2021, ashfall from the 5,230-meter (some 17,300-foot) volcano destroyed about 43,000 hectares (over 160,000 acres) […]
Tag: Ecuador
Ecuador in diplomatic storm after raid at Mexican embassy
By Paola Lopez and Santiago Piedra with Sofia Miselem in Mexico City QUITO, April 7, 2024 (AFP) – Ecuador faced criticism from the UN and across Latin America on Saturday after its security forces stormed the Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest graft-accused former vice president Jorge Glas, who had been granted political asylum there. Special forces equipped with a battering ram surrounded the embassy, and at least one agent scaled the walls, in an […]
Ecuador prison riot leaves one dead, four injured
(AFP) — At least one person was killed and four injured in an overnight prison revolt in Ecuador’s port city of Guayaquil, at the same facility from which one of the country’s most feared gang leaders escaped in January, the government said Thursday. Deputy security minister Lyonel Calderon said the toll was provisional pending a “complete review of the entire penitentiary center,” located in a city which has become a dangerous hub for the export […]
Dozens arrested in Ecuador after hospital assault
QUITO, Jan 22, 2024 (AFP) – Police in violence-plagued Ecuador arrested 68 people Sunday who had attempted to take over a hospital in the country’s southwest in the midst of a “war” between drug gangs and the security forces. “We neutralized alleged terrorists who were trying to take over the facilities of a hospital in Yaguachi, Guayas,” police announced on X, the former Twitter. Those detained were believed to be trying to rescue a colleague […]
Prosecutor probing gang-related Ecuador TV studio attack is killed
QUITO, Jan 17, 2024 (AFP) – The prosecutor investigating a dramatic armed assault by gangsters last week on an Ecuadoran television station during a live broadcast was shot dead Wednesday, the attorney general said. A prosecution source told AFP that Cesar Suarez had been in charge of finding the gang responsible for the terror-inspiring attack on state-owned TC Television in the port city of Guayaquil by hooded assailants armed with guns and explosives. AFP obtained […]
Ecuador president says ‘in state of war’ against cartels
By Santiago PIEDRA SILVA QUITO, Jan 10, 2024 (AFP) – Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa said Wednesday the country was in “a state of war” against drug cartels who have carried out a wave of kidnappings and deadly attacks in response to government crackdown. Hundreds of soldiers patrolled near-deserted streets in Ecuador’s capital, where residents were gripped by fear over a surge of violence that has prompted alarm abroad. The small South American country has been […]
Dynastic succession: Daniel Noboa, heir to banana empire, becomes Ecuador’s youngest president
QUITO, Oct 16, 2023 (AFP) – At the age of 35, Ecuador’s president-elect Daniel Noboa is fulfilling the political dreams of his banana tycoon father, who failed five times to win the presidency. With about 52 percent of the vote, based on a near-complete count, little-known businessman Noboa was on Sunday elected the youngest president-elect in modern Ecuadoran history, edging out socialist rival Luisa Gonzalez. With a serious air, but tanned and sporty, Noboa focused […]
Ecuadorans elect youngest-ever president, Daniel Noboa, to address country’s challenges
QUITO, Oct 16, 2023 (AFP) – Car horns in Quito blared in celebration Sunday as banana empire heir Daniel Noboa, 35, became violence-riddled Ecuador’s youngest president-elect ever. With 90 percent of votes counted, the electoral authority announced Noboa as the victor. Moments earlier, socialist rival Luisa Gonzalez conceded defeat and offered her “profound congratulations” to Noboa, “because this is democracy.” Addressing supporters in Quito, Gonzales also said she would not be claiming fraud. Ecuadorans voted […]
Ecuador jungle community hopes vote will end oil drilling
BAMENO, Ecuador, Aug 4, 2023 (AFP) – Armed with a long blowgun and darts laced with poison extracted from plants, Kominta walks naked through the thick Ecuadorian jungle, where oil exploration is threatening his way of life. “The jungle is my home, and I don’t want strangers in my territory,” the Waorani hunter tells AFP in the southeastern village of Bameno, in a region bordering Peru. His community of about 200 people is in Yasuni […]
El Niño spells trouble for vulnerable Galapagos iguana
By Carlos MANDUJANO Agence France-Presse PUERTO AYORA , Ecuador (AFP) — Unusually warm for this time of year, the waters of the Pacific signal hard times for the reptilian inhabitants of Ecuador’s iconic Galapagos Islands. The balmy temperature is the first symptom of a new cycle of the El Niño weather phenomenon that periodically pronounces a sentence of starvation on the archipelago’s marine iguanas. Experts fear this El Niño could be one of the most […]
Three inmates found hanged at Ecuador prison
QUITO, Ecuador, June 22, 2023 (AFP) — Three inmates were found hanged Wednesday in a prison in Ecuador, where more than 400 people have died in bloody gang clashes at detention centers since 2021, authorities said. During a head count at the Riobamba prison, guards “identified three inmates suspended, without vital signs, with presumed indications of hanging,” the country’s prison authority SNAI said. The prosecutor’s office said on Twitter the bodies had been identified and […]
Six dead, eight wounded in Ecuador gang shooting
GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador, June 20, 2023 (AFP) — Six people were killed and eight wounded Monday in an apparent gang shootout in Guayaquil, a port city in Ecuador terrorized by a wave of violence blamed on a spiraling drug war, authorities said. Police Colonel Marcelo Castillo told AFP that six people had died in Guayaquil’s second mass shooting this month, which appeared to have been a settling of scores between rival gangs. The prosecutor’s office later […]
