In what police are calling the biggest prison massacre in Ecuador's history, gangs battled in a prison, killing at least 116 people and injuring 80 others.
Officials announced on Wednesday that at least five people had been beheaded. Fausto Buenao, police chief, said the inmates also tossed grenades.
The jail institution, which holds inmates tied to international drug groups, was retaken by 400 police personnel.
The insurrection was reportedly ordered by powerful Mexican drug trafficking groups operating in Ecuador, local media said.
President Guillermo Lasso declared a state of emergency in Ecuador's prison system, allowing the government, among other things, to deploy police and soldiers to prisons.
The bloodshed at the Litoral jail in the coastal city of Guayaquil on Tuesday was blamed on gangs tied to international drug traffickers fighting for control of the facility.
It's the latest in a string of violent clashes between rival gang members vying for prison authority. In February, almost 80 inmates were slain in two separate confrontations.
[#URGENTE] Equipo militar ingresa a la #PenitenciariaDelLitoral en este momento. #CrisisCarcelaria #URGENTE pic.twitter.com/KC6cFbDDzS — Canal RTU (@CanalRTU) September 29, 2021
The Litoral Penitentiary is considered one of the country's most violent.
Lasso, visibly shaken, told a news conference that what was going on in the Guayaquil prison was "terrible and tragic," and that he couldn't ensure that officials had restored control of the facility for the time being.
"It is terrible that prisons are being used as battlegrounds for criminal gang power struggles," he stated, adding that he will retake control of Litoral and prevent the violence from spreading to other institutions with "total firmness."
Inmates from Los Choneros, an Ecuadorean group with ties to Mexico's notorious Sinaloa drug cartel, are held at the Litoral penitentiary.
The Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG), on the other hand, is attempting to form partnerships with Ecuadorean gangs in order to take control of drug smuggling routes running from Ecuador to Central America from its Sinaloa rivals.
Lasso disclosed in July that the country's prison system was 30% overcrowded.
Images circulating on social media showed scores of bodies and scenes that appeared to be battlefields in the prison's Pavilions 9 and 10.
Officials said the riots were fought with weapons, knives, and bombs. Bodies were discovered in the prison's pipelines, Buenao said.
