QUITO, (Reuters) – Forty-five mayors in Ecuador have requested police protection in the past year as violence grips the country, where 22 local officials have died in violent circumstances since 2023, the executive director of the Association of Ecuadorean Municipalities (AME) said.
Officials have come under threat amid a national crackdown on criminal groups. President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency in January and designated 22 gangs as terrorist groups after armed men stormed a television channel in Guayaquil and more than a hundred prison guards were held hostage.
The crisis escalated last weekend when the bodies of Brigitte Garcia, the 27-year-old mayor of San Vicente, and Jairo Loor, her communications director, were found in a car in the province of Manabi. Both had been shot to death, police said.
Garcia, who represented a city on Ecuador’s coast, was the second mayor to have been killed since 2023.
