Ecuador vows to crush gangs, deploys more than 22,000 soldiers
- Ecuador is battling a terror campaign launched by powerful drug trafficking gangs
- President Daniel Noboa has ordered a nationwide crackdown by deploying armed forces
Ecuador’s armed forces were engaged in a brutal stand-off with organised crime, deploying more than 22,400 soldiers to put down a campaign of terror waged by gangs that has claimed 16 lives.
With an armed presence on the streets, patrols by land, sea and air, random body and car searches, prison raids and the enforcement of a curfew, the government of President Daniel Noboa has vowed not to yield in its “war” with 22 criminal gangs.
“They wanted to instil fear, but they aroused our ire,” Defence Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo said on social media.
“They believed they would subdue an entire country but forgot that the armed forces are trained for war.”
Since Monday, drug cartels have been waging a bloody campaign of kidnappings and attacks in response to a government crackdown on organised crime, prompting Noboa to declare the country to be in a “state of war.”