A shooting outside a nightclub in Santa Lucia, Ecuador, early Sunday morning killed eight individuals and left several others injured, according to authorities. The violence serves to underscore the mounting gang feuds that have engulfed the nation’s coastal areas over the past few years.
Police arrived soon after an emergency call about a shooting at around 1:15 a.m. local time (0615 GMT) in a nightclub in the town of Santa Lucia, which has around 38,000 inhabitants in Guayas Province. When they arrived on the scene, officers discovered seven dead and various injured. A further victim died later in hospital, police colonel Javier Chango said in a news conference.
The attackers drove in two pickup trucks and fired on customers drinking outdoors at the nightclub. Police found 800 cartridge cases at the crime scene, which strongly suggested a mass attack. The attackers escaped after the attack via an “unknown route,” said Chango.
One of the victims was Jorge Urquizo, the nightclub owner and brother to Santa Lucia’s mayor, Ubaldo Urquizo. In a statement, the mayor’s office conveyed great sadness over the incident and condoled with the families of the victims.
In the initial stages, a police officer stopped a man behind the wheel of a truck with a revolver but has not confirmed if he was linked to the shooting. The motives of the attack are yet to be determined by officials. Bodies of the victims were transported to a morgue in the nearby town of Daule for examination.
Escalating Violence Along Ecuador’s Cocaine Corridor
Previously regarded as a tranquil passageway between two of the globe’s biggest cocaine-producing nations, Peru and Colombia, Ecuador has witnessed an acute rise in gang violence over the past years. Ecuador’s ports have turned into primary transit sites for cocaine shipments, with the state data indicating that more than 70 percent of the world’s cocaine now moves through Ecuador.
Guayas Province, where Santa Lucia is situated, is one of four provinces recently put under a two-month state of emergency by President Daniel Noboa as part of an intensified effort to crack down on organized crime and gang violence.
Despite heightened military and police deployments, authorities have been unable to stem the bloodshed. Official records show over 4,051 murders in Ecuador during January through May a dismal record analysts note is the deadliest beginning to a year in recent times.
The nightclub shooting is a grim reminder of increasing security challenges confronting Ecuador, where local gangs affiliated with dominant Mexican and Colombian cartels continue to fight for domination of drug trafficking corridors.
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