(MENAFN) Gunmen dressed in military uniforms opened fire inside a pool hall late Friday night in Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, a city in northwestern Ecuador, killing at least seven people and injuring three others, according to local media reports published Saturday.

The assailants arrived around 10:30 p.m. in a vehicle and began shooting indiscriminately at patrons inside the establishment, located in the Nuevo Amanecer neighborhood, Primicias reported.

This marks the second deadly mass shooting in a pool hall in the province within a month. On August 17, seven people were also killed in a comparable attack, police confirmed.

So far in 2025, Ecuador has recorded 4,619 homicides—a staggering 47% increase compared to the same period last year—making it the deadliest six-month stretch in the nation’s history, according to data from the Ecuadorian Organized Crime Observatory.

The violence comes amid an intensified national crackdown on drug trafficking networks, following President Daniel Noboa’s declaration of an “internal armed conflict” in January 2024 to combat surging gang-related violence.

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