The mayor of a mining town in southern Ecuador was assassinated on Friday, the police announced, the second such murder in three days in this country badly affected by drug trafficking and violence caused by criminal gangs, reports AFP.
“This morning, Jorge Maldonado, the mayor of Portovelo, #ElOro, was the victim of gunfire that caused his death,” indicated the police on the X social network.
Maldonado was killed by “two criminals riding a motorcycle, when he was carrying out personal activities” in a neighborhood of Portovelo, according to the police.
On Wednesday, the mayor of another mining town in the south of the country, Camilo Ponce Enriquez, was shot dead in the province of Azuay.
This is the fifth Ecuadorian mayor assassinated in a year and the third in less than a month. In March, the young mayor of San Vicente, in Manabi province (southwest), was assassinated under similar circumstances.
Prosecutors, journalists and politicians are regularly victims of local criminal organizations with ties to Mexican and Colombian cartels.
On August 9, 2023, opposition presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was fatally shot after a campaign rally a few days before the elections.
This new assassination occurs two days before a referendum, wanted by the president Daniel Noboa, on some reforms aimed at the fight against organized crime, notes AFP, quoted by Agerpres.
About 13.6 million voters, out of a population of 17.7 million, are called to decide, for example, whether they agree to the extradition of Ecuadorians to countries that want to try them for their ties with organized crime.
Severely affected by drug trafficking and corruption, Ecuador has been facing a large-scale security crisis caused by criminal gangs since January. President Noboa, elected in November for an 18-month term, declared that the country was in “internal armed conflict” and deployed the army to neutralize about 20 such criminal groups.
Since then, at least a dozen politicians or local officials have been assassinated.
Editor: Liviu Cojan
