Ecuador – Internal Armed Conflict
John Moore
Getty Images
Watch the meeting with John Moore, moderated by Caroline Laurent-Simon https://cloud.imagesevidence.com/index.php/s/SBxfYMT4nTEpMdj
In Ecuador, the armed forces and police made thousands of arrests nationwide after President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency in early 2024 to fight surging violence and extortion by gangs, a situation which had given Ecuador the highest per capita homicide rate in Latin America. With the president declaring an “internal armed conflict,” the country’s security forces were granted extended powers to battle the powerful gangs that were officially labeled as terrorist organizations. The conflict had become shockingly clear to the world when hooded gang members took over a television station in Guayaquil during a live broadcast.
Getty Images special correspondent John Moore traveled to Ecuador in February 2024 to document the country’s response to the gang crisis. He obtained rare access to military and police raids in Guayaquil and in Esmeraldas province, entering neighborhoods previously controlled by armed gangs. He documented arrests as authorities seized weapons and searched for drugs and contraband. During one raid he photographed police kicking and beating men taken into custody, but was asked to leave when officers began to interrogate the suspects.
In recent years, because of the violence, Carnival celebrations had been suspended in much of the country, in particular in coastal areas. Extortion and death threats had caused many coastal residents to flee. In the month after the state of emergency was declared, crime dropped and authorities in Esmeraldas province authorized Carnival events: people came out to celebrate while uniformed soldiers patrolled the beaches.
Preview
In Guayaquil, Moore photographed inside the notorious Litoral Penitentiary, the largest prison in Ecuador where masked soldiers guarded orange-clad inmates, many of whom had been arrested in raids over the previous month. Military officials cut the electricity supply and confiscated cell phones, making it almost impossible for gang leaders to run their outside operations from the inside, as they had before.
The family of a gang member who died in military custody at the Litoral Penitentiary collected the body from the city morgue and gave Moore permission to photograph his wake. They claimed he had been tortured, and showed photos as evidence. Many Ecuadorians seem willing to accept the trade-off between human rights and public safety, but for families who have lost loved ones, it is much more personal. After choosing the coffin, the stepfather of the dead man, who is seen embracing relatives, acknowledged that his stepson had turned to crime: “There are no jobs here, no opportunities, but he didn’t deserve this. Not like this.”
Many have compared the situation in Ecuador to the military response in El Salvador with the recently re-elected President Nayib Bukele and the mass incarceration of gang members and other offenders. But Ecuador is a larger country with nearly three times the population, and a surging narco-economy that has led to higher levels of government corruption, and more heavily armed gangs. The success of Ecuador’s “mano dura” policy is still far from certain.
