Fourteen killed in the Machala prison of Ecuador as rival gangs clash

According to police, 13 detainees and a prison guard were killed and that 14 other people injured against clashes between rival gangs in an equator prison.

People living near prison in the southwest city of Machala said they heard explosions and fire in the early hours of Monday, the local time.

Police chief William Calle said that an unknown number of prisoners had escaped during the incident, but that 13 had so far been resumed.

The clashes and mortal riots are not uncommon in Ecuador, the gangs often targeting members of rival groups.

Police blamed the members of a criminal gang called Los Lobos Box for Monday violence. The gang did not comment on the incident.

Preliminary reports suggest that security personnel rushed into one of the wings of the prison after receiving an alarm call from those that are hosted there.

Upon their arrival, the detainees took them hostage and killed one of the guards.

According to reports, the members of Los Lobos Box then stormed a wing where their rivals were locked up and attacked them.

Some detainees managed to escape through a hole in the wall of the perimeter caused by an explosive device that they had triggered.

It is not yet known how the explosives have been smuggled in the prison.

Among the 14 injured are two police officers, CDR Calle said.

He added that the security forces had regained control of the prison after deploying 200 police officers and soldiers.

According to the Ecuadvisa Ecuaden television channel, Machala residents have long asked that the prison, located in the center of the city, be moved.

The equator had trouble containing a wave of gang violence which transformed it transformed from one of the safest nations in Latin America into one of the deadliest.

The prison gangs played a key role in the management of criminal companies behind bars and struck alliances with the Mexican drug cartels to control the flow of cocaine of neighboring producing countries through the ports of the equator in the United States and beyond.

Earlier this month, the United States has appointed two Ecuadorian gangs – Los Lobos and Los Choneros – as foreign terrorist organizations (FTO).

The US State Department said at the time that “the ultimate objective of the gangs was to control the drug trafficking routes via the equator by terrorizing and inflicting brutal violence on the Ecuadorian people”.