Just weeks after the country was shaken by the assassination of a presidential candidate, a series of car bombings and the hostage-taking of law enforcement continue in Ecuador.
Four car bombs exploded in Ecuador overnight within hours of each other without injuring anyone, police said Thursday, but they served to underscore the South American country’s fragile security. Ecuador’s National Police said two of the bombs exploded in Quito, the capital, while the other two went off in a province that borders Peru. Ecuador National Police Gen. Pablo Ramírez, the national director of anti-drug investigations, told reporters Thursday the explosions in Quito were related to “several transfers of inmates” that took place this week.
Authorities attribute the country’s spike in violence over the past three years to a power vacuum triggered by the killing in 2020 of Jorge Zambrano, alias ‘Rasquiña’ or ‘JL,’ the leader of the local Los Choneros gang