One Police Officer Killed and Another Injured in Armed Attack in Ecuador
Crime scene in Nueva Prosperina, Guayas, Ecuador, Feb. 9, 2025. X/ @NuevoTiempoCue
February 9, 2025 Hour: 2:26 pm
The officers were guarding a person under house arrest who was being prosecuted for kidnapping.
In the early hours of Sunday, the Ecuadorian police reported that unidentified criminals carried out an attack that left one police officer dead and another wounded. This occurred while the officers were guarding a person under house arrest who was being prosecuted for kidnapping.
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The attack took place in Nueva Prosperina, one of the most dangerous and conflict-ridden neighborhoods in the coastal city of Guayaquil, the epicenter of Ecuador’s criminal violence crisis. This crisis led this Andean country to record the highest homicide rate in Latin America in 2023.
“The police report states that at 1:20 a.m. on Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025, five members of a terrorist organization shot at the uniformed officers and robbed them of their clothing and pistols. Then the criminals fled in an unknown direction,” the newspaper El Nuevo Tiempo revealed.
The victim was identified as Corporal Segundo Intriago, while the wounded officer, whose name has not been disclosed, was taken to a medical center for treatment.
The incident happened just before the start of today’s general elections, in which over 13.7 million Ecuadorians are called to vote for a president, vice president, 151 members of the National Assembly, and five representatives for the Andean Parliament. Police and military forces have been deployed across the country to ensure security at polling stations.
The 2025 elections are taking place amid an “internal armed conflict” declared in early 2024 by President Daniel Noboa, a right-wing politician seeking re-election despite his failure to resolve the severe economic crisis and daily insecurity afflicting Ecuadorians.
Following this declaration, he issued multiple states of emergency in the provinces most affected by violence, allowing security forces to intensify their efforts to contain the nation’s ongoing violence.
teleSUR/ JF Sources: EFE – El Nuevo Tiempo
