© Agencia Press South/Getty ImagesSoldiers on guard in Quito as the violence has left the city streets almost deserted.
Ecuador's president, Daniel Noboa, said on Wednesday that his country was "at war" with drug gangs who are holding more than 130 prison staff hostage and who briefly captured a TV station live on air, in a wave of violence that has left city streets deserted.
At least 10 people have been killed, including police officers, in the attacks.
In images that went around the world, gunmen stormed a TV station during a live broadcast on Tuesday before being captured by police special forces.
Videos posted on social media showed a gruesome series of other attacks including car bombs, the murder of police officers in the street, the apparent lynching of prison guards and attempted takeovers of hospitals and a university in Guayaquil. The Ecuadorian police confirmed two officers had been killed.
Speaking last week, Noboa said the planned prisons would be "just the same" as those in El Salvador, jokingly inviting "Bukele lovers", referring to supporters of the Salvadorian president, to visit.
Prison transfers of gang leaders have historically led to violence, with hundreds of prisoners killed in recent years.
Ecuador's prison service said 139 guards and other staff were being held hostage in jails amid uncorroborated videos showing apparent lynchings and killings of prison staff. Eleven prison guards had been released, it added.
Businesses and offices were closed in most Ecuadorian cities and children were sent home to study online until the end of the week.
Video footage showed gunfights between soldiers and unseen armed men in southern Ecuador, while other images on social media showed armed men on the streets and traffic at a standstill.
Authorities in Guayaquil said there were "takeover" incidents at five hospitals, but that police and soldiers had restored order. It was unclear what the incidents entailed.
The city's roads were eerily quiet and there was scant sign of the major military deployment promised by Ecuador's president.
Guayaquil's normally bustling La Bahia market was a ghost town on Wednesday afternoon with only a handful of its hundreds of metal stalls open for business.
"We are paralyzed. We are utterly paralyzed. The whole city is like this," said watch repairer Juan Ciro Granados Criollo, 70, who could only remember seeing the region so empty on one other occasion: during the Covid pandemic.
Martha Sanchez, a 38-year-old shop keeper, said she felt consumed by uncertainty. "Truth be told, I'm afraid," she admitted, calling for the government to respond to the criminal attacks with "a firm hand". "Everything is absolute chaos."
On Tuesday night, Peru declared an emergency along its northern border with Ecuador. The country's prime minister, Alberto Otárola, made the announcement, noting that the emergency declaration would deploy an unspecified number of army troops to support police forces and that the country's defence and interior ministers would also travel to the border.
The assistant secretary for western hemisphere affairs at the US state department, Brian A Nichols, said on X that he was "extremely concerned by today's violence & kidnappings in Ecuador. The United States stands with the people of Ecuador."
Noboa said the country would begin to deport foreign prisoners, especially Colombians, this week to reduce prison populations and spending.
There are about 1,500 Colombians in prison in Ecuador, Noboa told the radio station, adding that prisoners from Colombia, Peru and Venezuela accounted for 90% of jailed foreigners.
Colombia's justice minister told local radio on Tuesday he was willing to work with Ecuador, but that Colombian law dictated that repatriations must be assessed on a case-by-case basis and be based on requests from prisoners themselves.
Colombia has, like many Latin American countries, expressed its support for Ecuador's government, and said on Wednesday it would increase military presence and controls along their nearly 600km (370-mile) shared border.
Meanwhile the US population is wondering, what happened to the "American Dream"
Is this the the epitome of 21st century human development, in a technology advanced society, that espouses the best for humanity.
All I see is conflict, more wars, ignited in what was once thought of non political countries now up in arms.
The world is run, by the most basic pathological of creatures, that live off the profit of sex money and drugs, in all it's connotations.
Image at the top of the page is telling. Offers insight in the World to Come.