Tensions between Mexico and Ecuador escalated on April 5, when Ecuadorian police invaded the Mexican Embassy in Quito. Jorge Glas, the former Ecuadorian Vice President, was arrested while taking refuge in the embassy after being convicted on accounts of corruption and bribery, leading to the diplomatic ties between the two countries being suspended.
Read MoreHundreds of rehabilitation centers in the country have been raided and closed by police for being operated as clandestine centers by Drug gangs, officials say these hospitals lack proper patient care, says France24.
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On March 18, Ecuador and Peru experienced an earthquake with a calculated magnitude of 6.5 on the Richter scale. The earthquake’s epicenter was on Puná Island in Ecuador’s southeast, affecting it and northern Peru.
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On October 3, 2022, a prison riot in the Cotopaxi Jail located in the city of Latacunga, Ecuador, left 43 prisoners injured and 16 dead, according to Ecuadorian news outlet Ecuavisa. The following day a ninth prison massacre caused by gang violence this year occurred at the Littoral Penitentiary leaving 13 prisoners dead, says ecuavisa
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Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso announced the reimposition of a state of emergency last Friday in three crime-ridden provinces, Guayas, Manabí, and Esmeraldas, Reuters reports. The measure, which went into effect on April 30, will remain in place for 60 days. More than 9,000 members of the police and military are expected to help enforce the government’s curfew from 11:00 PM to 5:00 AM and restore law and order in the streets.
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On April 22, an Ecuadorian high court requested the extradition of former leftist President Rafael Correa from his current residence in Belgium. Correa, who has lived in Belgium since the end of his presidency in 2017, was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison for the alleged acceptance of bribes to finance his political endeavors between 2012 and 2016 in exchange for state contracts worth around $7 million.
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Voters in Ecuador elected Guillermo Lasso, a conservative banker, to serve as president for the next four years. Lasso won the runoff election with just 52.5 percent of the votes, reports The Economist, after claiming a spot in the runoff with a lead of a half a percentage point.
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Anew policy has been implemented ending the state’s over forty-year-old fuel subsidy and launching Ecuador into the worst protests the country has seen in decades, forcing an official “state of emergency.”
Read MoreThe U.S. and Central America are common destinations for cocaine trafficked through Ecuador. According to a United Nations International Narcotics Control Board report, cocaine seizures in Ecuador rose by over 252 percent from 2010 to 2015.
Read MoreEcuador’s presidential election will go into a runoff election on April 2 after February 19’s compulsory vote failed to produce a successor to the ten-year incumbent, President Rafael Correa.
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