President of Ecuador challenges gangs to face the army

Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa has told gangs to fight the military instead of hurting civilians. Soldiers were sent to stop the gangs.

MrNoboa said there is big trouble in the Andean country because of gangs. He said this on Monday.

During a live TV show, some men with guns burst into the station and scared the workers.

Over 300 people have been arrested during the state of emergency.

Mr Noboa sounded strong and confident during a radio interview on Wednesday.

The 36-year-old president, who has been in power for only two months, stood up to the gangs. “He encouraged them to be strong and stand up against the soldiers. He pointed out that the gangs mainly attack people who are not armed or soldiers. ”

At least 14 people have been killed in the past few days. Gang members have been using bombs, burning cars, and kidnapping police officers on duty.

One hundred and twenty-five prison guards and 14 prison workers have been taken hostage by inmates, officials have confirmed. A military leader said on Wednesday that none of the hostages have been killed yet.

President Noboa said Ecuador is going through a really hard time, but he promised that his government will be strong against the gangs and anyone in the legal system who supports them.

The recent increase in attacks seems to have started when they tried to move the gang leader “Fito” from a jail he controlled to a safer prison.

However, when the police went into his room at the jail on Sunday, they saw that it was empty.

The news that he escaped caused riots in another jail. Fabricio Colón Pico, a leader of the Los Lobos gang, also escaped during the riots.

Fito, whose real name is Adolfo Macías Villareal, and Colón Pico have not been found yet. The government of Ecuador has offered a prize for any information that can help find and catch them. They are also giving prizes to 17 more gang leaders.

Ecuador used to be a safe country, but now the number of murders has gone up a lot. This happened because criminal gangs involved in drug trafficking have become stronger.

President Noboa said that 22 groups were “terrorist gangs” and stated that his country was in the middle of an “internal armed conflict”.

Ecuador’s Congress agreed on a new law that lets soldiers go out on the streets to look for weapons and people they think might have committed a crime.

The BBC’s Will Grant is in Guayaquil, the city that was most affected by the recent violence. He says the people there are still trying to understand why the gang violence happened.

A journalist who was there when the TC television studios in Guayaquil were taken over by gunmen, told an Ecuadorean news site called Primicias about how they threatened her and her coworkers.

She explained how the men with weapons told the person on TV to make a statement while the show was being broadcasted.

“They asked my coworker to say the mafia is in control and the president can’t defeat us. But she said the gunmen didn’t have any specific requests besides that. ”

The police caught the gang and arrested 18 people.