By Laura Gamba
BOGOTA, Colombia (AA) - Ecuadorian authorities announced Friday that 50 prison guards and seven police officers who were held hostage in six Ecuadorian prisons have been released.
The National Prisons Agency (SNAI) said the guards and officers are "in good health."
The SNAI confirmed Thursday that prisoners in a jail in Cuenca had been holding the guards and officers hostage. It was reportedly in response to recent security situations in prisons by criminal groups.
Authorities reported two attacks involving explosives and car bombs that occurred late Wednesday. And two new attacks occurred Friday with explosive devices attached under a bridge in Napo province.
"There are violent actions like that of the two cars burned in Quito last night, clearly that's a reaction to an action. The action of imposing order in the prisons, the reaction to intimidate," President Guillermo Lasso said at an event in Los Rios province.
Ecuador's prisons are witnessing power struggles among drug trafficking gangs with links to Colombian and Mexican cartels.
In response to fighting between criminal organizations, Lasso declared a 60-day state of emergency July 24 for the entire penitentiary system, which allows him to deploy the military inside prisons.
Violent disputes between organized crime gangs have killed more than 430 inmates in Ecuadorian prisons since 2021.