Gangs battling for control over port city leaves Ecuador broken
The HinduWith slow yet heavy steps, Herlinda walks through the rubble of what used to be her house. The humble two-story building was blown up a year ago in an attack by criminal gangs who fought over the port city of Guayaquil, known as Ecuador’s gateway to the Pacific, located some 400 km south of capital Quito. Rise in violence The highly populated place, made up of rows of humble buildings and narrow streets, is one of the areas where criminal gangs fight each other in Ecuador. All these limitations create the perfect scenarios for organised crime, which comes from nothing other than the criminalisation of poverty,” says Scarlett Choez, a social worker on Isla Trinitaria, whose father was seriously injured in a neighbourhood bombing. There have already been kidnappings, and businesses that have been attacked by explosives.” The rise in violent crimes has deeply affected the popularity of the government of President Guillermo Lasso, whose approval rating hit 15%.