Heavily armed gunmen stormed the studios of TC Televisión in Guayaquil during a live news broadcast on Tuesday, prompting Ecuador’s president to declare a state of “internal armed conflict” amid a wave of coordinated attacks.
Masked men carrying pistols, shotguns, machine guns, grenades and dynamite burst into the building at around 2pm local time, forcing employees to lie on the floor. The incident was broadcast live until the signal was cut. Police later arrested 13 suspects. Alina Manrique, the station’s head of news, said she was in the control room when the group entered and a gunman pointed a weapon at her head. “I am still in shock,” she told the Associated Press.
The assault came hours after President Daniel Noboa issued a decree designating 20 drug trafficking gangs as terrorist groups and authorising the military to “neutralise” them under international humanitarian law. The move followed the escape from prison of Adolfo Macías, alias Fito, the leader of the powerful Los Choneros gang, on Sunday. Noboa had declared a two-month state of emergency on Monday, vowing to regain control of prisons that have seen more than 420 inmate deaths since 2021.
In the wake of the TV station attack, three police officers were kidnapped in Machala and a fourth in Quito. Dozens of prison guards were also being held in jails across the country. Peru declared an emergency along its northern border with Ecuador, deploying army troops to support police.
Noboa, elected in October on a pledge to combat violent crime, said in a social media post: “In response, these supposed narcoterrorist groups try to threaten us and believe that we will give in to their demands.” The unrest has highlighted the escalating power of drug gangs in Ecuador, which has seen its homicide rate quintuple in five years.
