중남미

Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa started the new year with a declaration of “internal armed conflict” against criminal groups, coupled with a sixty-day state of emergency. Earlier this week, two leaders of criminal groups—José Adolfo Macías Salazar, alias “Fito,” of the group Los Choneros, and Fabricio Colón Pico, alias “Capitan Pico,” from Los Lobos—escaped from prison. The escape was accompanied by a series of prison riots, car bombs, kidnappings, and criminal attacks on a television channel and a university in Guayaquil. The Noboa administration’s first steps to address the violence and turmoil have been positive, but this will be a long battle and one for which Ecuador urgently needs international support.