The Latin American Report # 203

South America's northwest coast turns red

In Ecuador, police carried out a controlled detonation of five emulsion-type explosive charges found inside a backpack in the parking lot of a soccer stadium in the southern city of Lacatunga, Cotopaxi province, where a first division match was being played (footage below). According to the information provided in this AP cable, the facility was evacuated without any damage. In the South American country, the intense rain of bullets unloaded by organized crime has not completely abated. This though a state of exception decreed by President Daniel Noboa is still in force in the face of an unprecedented escalation of violent actions that had the convulsive province of Guayas as its epicenter at the beginning of the year. The escape of two important leaders of two of the country's most notorious gangs, together with the shameful takeover of a television channel that was broadcasting live, also forced Noboa to declare war on the criminal organizations, which last year went so far as to gun down a presidential candidate, whose death has yet to be fully clarified. The two escaped leaders have yet to be found, in a clear demonstration of the strength of organized crime and the inoperability and connivance of the authorities.

ACTUALIZACIÓN ||

Tras varias inspecciones de nuestras unidades especializadas antiexplosivos y mediante la utilización de medios técnicos se realizó una detonación controlada y posterior neutralización de 5 posibles cargas explosivas tipo emulsión que se encontraban dentro de… pic.twitter.com/aZ0dCmdy7x

— Policía Ecuador (@PoliciaEcuador) March 24, 2024

While the police and the army—mobilized to ensure internal order—have somehow quashed crime, particularly the penal system, several events in recent hours demonstrate that there is still a long way to go. For example, a 42-year-old woman was murdered yesterday, Saturday, in the extremely violent port city of Guayaquil, capital of Guayas, when hitmen cut off the bus she was traveling on and boarded to massacre her, leaving her body with wounds in the face, at the level of the jaw, and in the neck. Her partner was wounded. Also in the northwest of Guayaquil, a young 21-year-old mother was shot to death and then abandoned in a place known as "the canal of death". The woman, of limited means according to relatives, and who has three children, was intercepted by subjects on a motorcycle maybe to rob her cell phone. She was found with bullet wounds in her back, and there is still no news of her sister-in-law, underage, who accompanied her when she went out to buy medicine and diapers.

In Sucumbíos, army troops were ambushed by "heavily armed" men last Friday night, in an action where 2nd Corporal Daniel Valencia Arcos lost his life. Military honors were paid to him at the Mariscal Sucre airport, in the capital. Finally, in the province of Santa Elena, at least six people died in violent acts last night. One body was found "with ballistic evidence" inside an overturned vehicle on the side of the road in Atahualpa parish. A man was shot in the thorax at the entrance of another parish in the Salinas canton. And in the Otto Arosemena neighborhood, four men were killed in an armed attack, with one of them dying in the hospital, where other wounded were receiving care. Strong images were taken perhaps after the latter attack in Santa Elena—where last Friday a social activist was also stabbed to death.

#ATENCIÓN
El número de víctimas en el trágico suceso en la provincia de Santa Elena ha aumentado a más de 8 personas fallecidas, según usuarios. https://t.co/zjby6lKxW5 pic.twitter.com/gTNHnGzXDr

— Ecuador En Directo (@EcEnDirecto) March 24, 2024

Curfew extended in Haiti

In the Caribbean country, there was calm after new violent dawn this Saturday, while the "Government" extended the curfew in force since March 6 in the department that includes Port-au-Prince. The Haitian people, most of whom are suffering from very tense levels of acute food insecurity, are unhinged as the transition to be led by an ad hoc presidential council—coordinated by Caricom, Western powers, and Brazil under the auspices of the United Nations—is delayed. This is due to the lack of consensus among its members on who should have the right to vote, but also because international assistance is a source of tension as some members are careful not to damage the notion of sovereignty. Negotiations are due to continue next Monday, in a Sunday pause which seems inappropriate given the need to progress in this regard. So, residents of the capital told AFP that gangs attacked a special police force base located in the Fort Nationale neighborhood. The Motorized Intervention Brigade was also attacked, with no information at dawn Sunday on human or material damage. More than 33,000 people have fled a Port-au-Prince which has become a bastion of crime, now united in a syndicate of gangs under the leadership of alias Babekyou. EFE reports the discovery of three corpses on the road linking the communities of Nazon and Lalue, which would raise to about forty the number of victims reported during this bloody week alone.

_Source

Mexico

The governor of Sinaloa has raised to 66 the number of individuals who were kidnapped on Friday in Culiacan, although he said that two-thirds of them have been "located". It should be recalled that there was official talk of 15, but the local media was first pointing to some 40. Of the people located as of Saturday night, 18 were minors, while a strong operation is underway, mounted by state and federal authorities with the support of the Army. There could be a link between this massive kidnapping and a bloody confrontation days ago in which an important asset of the criminal gang "Los Chapitos", led by the sons of El Chapo Guzman—sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States—was killed. El Chapo's heirs are reportedly engaged in an internal struggle for control of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel with their uncle Aureliano Guzman Loera, alias El Guano, and Ismael Zambada, alias El Mayo—I shared below a video of an unidentified armed group threatening allies of Los Chapitos, apparently edited so as not to show the moment when they execute a rival in custody. Returning to the kidnapping, and as usual in Mexico, the release of the kidnapped people occurred without a confrontation between the authorities and the criminals, and the identity of the latter has not been clarified. Some of the people so far "released" were found near a convenience store, while others were located in the downtown area, which would reinforce the thesis that the kidnapping is perhaps a coded message between criminals, or from them to certain authorities. Attempts have also been made to connect these events with the electoral race because of the political militancy of the governor of Sinaloa.

⚠️ “ #SONORA TIENE DUEÑO” dice este grupo fuertemente armado a contrincantes, que aseguran, “vienen de fuera” . En el video presuntamente grabado en #Sáric, asesinan a una víctima integrante de un grupo delictivo conocido como “los deltas” y aprovechan para lanzar advertencia.… pic.twitter.com/PCL5yr4drN

— Michelle Rivera (@michelleriveraa) March 22, 2024

Other violent acts reported during the weekend

Another mayoral candidate was murdered yesterday, Saturday, in the Aztec nation, this time in the municipality of Acatzingo, state of Puebla. The deceased Jaime Gonzalez ran for the same political formation of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Preliminary information shared in X states that the former candidate was approached "by armed men on a motorcycle when he was in a car lot he owned". Beyond the sad event, this last fact is very revealing about Mexican politics. On the other hand, crime is on the rise in Nuevo León, particularly in the municipality of Pesquería. This Saturday, security measures were intensified after the dreadful discovery of more than 10 bodies—some of them burned inside a pickup truck—in a vacant lot. Last September there was another similar discovery, whose victims were linked to a purge between criminal gangs for possible infiltration. Finally, also yesterday, in the violent state of Guerrero, the tortured bodies of a man and a woman were found lifeless wrapped in a sheet.

_{Deployment of security forces in Nuevo León (source).}

And this is all for our report today. I have referenced the sources dynamically in the text, and remember you can learn how and where to follow the LATAM trail news by reading my work here. Have a nice day.