(MENAFN) Authorities in Ecuador discovered the bodies of 27 inmates who were hanged over the weekend at a prison in Machala, the capital of El Oro province near the Peruvian border, in what officials described as another outbreak of gang-fueled violence.

In a statement, the National Service for Comprehensive Attention to Persons Deprived of Liberty (SNAI) said the victims died from “asphyxiation, which caused immediate death by hanging,” suggesting the killings were carried out by fellow inmates — a method often associated with gang disputes inside the country’s prisons.

The mass deaths occurred just hours after a separate confrontation in the same facility left four inmates dead and 33 prisoners and one police officer injured. SNAI said the violence erupted amid a “reorganization of prisoners” ahead of the launch of a new maximum-security complex under President Daniel Noboa’s administration.

Elite police units were deployed “immediately” to restore control, and seven suspects have been detained for prosecution.

Ecuador’s prison system has been plagued by escalating violence linked to powerful drug gangs. Since President Noboa declared a state of internal armed conflict in January 2024, the military has overseen the country’s detention centers.

The Machala incident follows a deadly riot in Esmeraldas in September that killed at least 17 inmates and another clash at the same Machala facility just three days earlier that left 14 dead.

According to official data, more than 500 inmates have been killed in Ecuador’s prisons since 2021 — including over 100 who died in a large-scale riot in Guayaquil that year. Despite intensified military and police operations, violence continues to expose deep structural flaws and entrenched gang control within the prison system.

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