The operation comes after President Daniel Noboa announced the release of nearly 170 prison officers and administrative staff who had been held by detainees for six days.
After a week of chaos, it took the mobilization of more than 1,000 police and soldiers in Ecuadorian prisons for the situation to return to calm.
On Sunday, the army and police regained control of several penitentiary centers across the country, such as here in the province of Cotopaxi, located south of the capital Quito. The day before, the authorities announced the release of more than a hundred hostages, most of them prison administration officials, held by mutineers.
“The National Police of Ecuador carried out an operation to free the 15 prison officers who were held hostage inside the prison“, explains Telmo Betancourt, police commander of the El Oro area.
At the origin of this wave of mutiny and attacks against police officers, the announcement, on January 7, of the escape of a powerful drug trafficker.
In recent years, Ecuador has become one of the main places for shipping cocaine produced in particular in Colombia.
