By Laura Gamba
BOGOTA, Colombia (AA) - Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa announced the start of construction Friday of a maximum-security prison in the coastal province of Santa Elena, which will house the most dangerous inmates in the country's prison system.
"Today we mark one of the most important milestones in our fight against terrorism and the mafias that entrenched themselves with impunity in our country for decades," Noboa said at a ceremony to lay the first stone for the prison. “In (this prison) you will find corrupt people, murderers and drug traffickers,” he added.
The government said the prison will follow international standards such as those of the ADX Florence Supermax in the US state of Colorado which is designed to hold inmates that pose extreme security threats for that country.
The facility, which will be the 37 in Ecuador, will cost $52 million and will be used to house 880 prisoners just 130 kilometers (81 miles) from the port city of Guayaquil. It will occupy almost 40 acres (16.2 hectares), and will be built in the "record time" of 300 days, said Gen. Luis Zaldumbide, director of the prison agency.
The new prison will include six surveillance towers, a nine-meter (30-foot) wall, maximum security modules, biometric systems for roll call and real-time access and monitoring, a 24/7 operational control center, signal jammers, advanced CCTV, vehicle locks and perimeter and fire detection, according to the government.
“Just seven months ago, the prison system was kidnapped and humiliated by criminal organizations that had turned the prisons into their centers of operations,” Noboa said while surrounded by construction machinery and members of the Armed Forces and police.
Residents in the surrounding area protested the construction.
The Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights reported that police evicted demonstrators.
Ecuador's prisons have been the center of violent clashes between drug gangs vying for power in recent years, which have left more than 600 dead since 2019, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.