GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador—The TC Television studio in Ecuador was having a typical day when masked gunmen broke in and started a live, 15-minute broadcast of threats and terror during their mid-afternoon program.
In the midst of the live broadcast on the public television channel, a man with a handgun initially materialized, then another man brandishing a shotgun, and so on. Station staff members were called onto the set and told to lie down, putting the show's "After the News" title behind them. There were screams, and then there were gunshots.
“We are on air, so you know that you cannot play with the mafia,” one of the assailants is heard saying.
Masked men could be seen aiming guns at news staff. Someone said: “Don’t shoot!” After about 15 minutes the transmission was cut.
Hours after a slew of earlier attacks and the kidnapping of a police officer, an extraordinary attack occurred on the TV station in the Ecuadorian coastal city of Guayaquil. It also happened after two of the most influential gang bosses in the nation seemed to break out of prison.
The incident on Tuesday left no one dead, and according to the authorities, the 13 perpetrators were taken into custody and will face terrorism-related charges. In what some experts regard as a turning point for Ecuador, President Daniel Noboa, who took office in November on a platform of bringing peace to the nation, said in a decree that the violent nation had entered a state of "internal armed conflict."
Following a meeting with his security cabinet late on Tuesday, Mr. Noboa was informed by the commander of the Armed Forces Joint Command that the assaults were the gangs' response to efforts taken by the government against them.
“They have unleashed a wave of violence to frighten the population,” Adm. Jaime Vela told journalists, describing the attacks as “unprecedented” in Ecuador’s history.
The South American country had been rocked by attacks since Monday night, but the assault on the newscast was seen in real-time in thousands of homes across the country.
“This is a turning point,” said Will Freeman, a political analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, adding that while gangs in Ecuador assassinated presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio and set off car bombs in front of government buildings, Tuesday’s events marked a new peak in violence.
“Depending on how the government responds, it will set the precedent for these kinds of incidents to continue, or it will use this as a catalyst and make some very necessary structural reforms so that the state can start to win its war against crime,” Mr. Freeman said.
Alina Manrique, the head of news for TC Television, was ordered to get on the floor.
“They aimed the gun at my head,” she told The Associated Press. “I thought about my entire life, about my two children.”
Ms. Manrique said some of the assailants ran from the studio and tried to hide when they realized they were surrounded by police.
“I am still in shock,” she said. “Everything has collapsed. … All I know is that it’s time to leave this country and go very far away.”
The assailants, who may be sentenced to up to 13 years in jail if found guilty of terrorism, were restrained by police officers who had broken into the TV station.
President Noboa proclaimed a nationwide state of emergency on Monday, one day following the possible escape of a prominent gang boss from jail. This declaration permits authorities to restrict civil liberties and deploy military forces in locations such as prisons.
Shortly after the gunmen invaded the TV station on Tuesday, Mr. Noboa signed another decree branding 20 drug-trafficking gangs operating in the nation as terrorist organizations and empowering Ecuador's military to "neutralize" them in accordance with international humanitarian law.
Since police revealed that Los Choneros gang boss Adolfo Macías, alias Fito, was found missing from his cell in a low-security jail on Sunday, at least thirty attacks, according to the government, have occurred. That day, he was supposed to be moved to a high security institution.
On Tuesday, authorities in Ecuador declared that Fabricio Colón Pico, the head of the Los Lobos gang, had broken free from a Riobamba jail. As part of an ongoing investigation into abduction, Mr. Colón Pico was apprehended on Friday. He is also suspected of attempting to kill a top prosecutor in the country.
Additional attacks include the four police officers that were abducted on Monday night and the explosion that occurred close to the National Justice Court president's home. According to police, three officers were kidnapped in Quevedo City and one in Quito, the nation's capital.
Authorities claim that Los Choneros, a group from Ecuador that is primarily linked to drug trafficking, has ties to the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.
It is unknown were Mr. Macías is. In relation to his purported escape, prosecutors launched an inquiry and brought charges against two guards; however, neither the federal government nor the police were able to verify if the prisoner had actually escaped or was still inside.
He broke out of a high security institution in February 2013, but he was apprehended a few weeks later.
After being found guilty of drug trafficking, homicide, and organized crime, Mr. Macías was incarcerated for 36 years at La Regional jail located near the port of Guayaquil.
Ecuador, which is sandwiched between Peru and Colombia, the two countries that manufacture the most cocaine worldwide, on the Pacific coast of South America, has recently emerged as a major cocaine transit hub. Drug gangs' conflicts with the government over control of ports and smuggling routes account for a large portion of the violence experienced by the nation.
