GATEWAY HISPANIC | Published March 11, 2025
The massacre in Nueva Prosperina, Guayaquil, where at least 22 people were brutally murdered by criminal gangs, is further proof of the disaster that the left and the progressives have left in Ecuador. As bodies fall and the streets are stained with blood, those responsible are not only the hitmen of Los Tiguerones, but also the soft policies and permissive ideology that for years have fueled this hell. It’s time to say it clearly: Correismo and its progressive allies are to blame for this bloodbath.
In a forgotten suburb like Nueva Prosperina, 20 thugs armed with rifles and pistols burst in as masters of life and death, coldly executing anyone who crossed their path. It is not an isolated event; It is the result of years of abandonment and a rotten system that the left built.
The mayor Aquiles Alvarez, a puppet of Correísmo, has the audacity to call it “barbarity” and point to the government of Daniel Noboa, but where were his people when these mafias took control? Correismo governed Ecuador for a decade, and in that time the gangs grew, armed themselves, and took over entire cities like Guayaquil. Now, with 180 violent deaths in this district alone so far this year, the legacy of Rafael Correa and his henchmen is in sight: a country turned into a battlefield.
The left has always played the same game: talk nicely, promise social justice and then look the other way while organized crime takes over everything. Instead of a firm hand against criminals, they preferred empty speeches and lukewarm policies that left citizens defenseless. Progressives, with their obsession with the “rights” of criminals, have turned Ecuador into a paradise for drug traffickers and murderers.
It is no coincidence that many of the dead and wounded in this massacre have records for robbery, drug trafficking and possession of weapons. What did the left-wing governments do to stop them before? Nothing. They let them loose so they can keep killing today.
Meanwhile, President Noboa, a Republican of action, is facing this disaster with what he has: states of exception and a declared war against the gangs. He’s not perfect, but at least he’s doing something.
Compare that to Correismo, which now, in the middle of an election campaign, uses the blood of the victims to attack the government and push its candidate, Luisa González. It’s disgusting. They want to return to power to continue protecting their friends in the shadows, while ordinary Ecuadorians live in fear, trapped between bullets and empty promises.
Guayaquil, the most populous city in the country, is the epicenter of this violence because that is where the profits from drug trafficking are concentrated, and the mafias have no limit. Ecuador is today the champion of homicides in Latin America, with one murder per hour in 2025, and that did not begin with Noboa.
It is the harvest of years of progressive policies that preferred to embrace criminals rather than protect decent people. Alvarez complains about “smokescreens” from the government, but the real smoke is the one his party has thrown to cover up his complicity with the chaos.
We conservatives know that the solution is not in more speeches or whining about “inequality.” A firm hand is needed, relentless punishment for criminals and a government that puts citizens above gangs.
Noboa has taken steps, such as classifying these gangs as terrorists, but we must go further: jail without truce, deportation of foreign criminals and, if necessary, the death penalty for those who suffer death. The left will say it is “cruel”, but cruel is letting the families of Nueva Prosperina bury their children because of their negligence.
On April 13, in the presidential runoff, Ecuadorians have a clear option: continue with Noboa’s fight against crime or return to the dark past of Correísmo. The Nueva Prosperina massacre is not just a headline; It is a cry for help that the left ignores. We, the Republicans, say enough is enough. It is time to cleanse the country of these rats and those who allowed them to grow.
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SOURCE: www.gatewayhispanic.com
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Ecuador’s National Police presents individuals detained during a police operation following gang clashes yesterday in Guayaquil
DAILY MAIL ONLINE | Published March 11, 2025
least 22 people have been brutally killed in Ecuador’s port city of Guayaquil after rival factions of a drug trafficking gang vying for control over territory exchanged gunfire.
Gun battles broke out across the northern neighborhood of Nueva Prosperina on Thursday afternoon between members of criminal group Los Tiguerones, local police chief Pablo Davila told reporters.
‘Yesterday criminals killed each other in these certain parts of town,’ Davila said.
‘The problem is that they know each other, they know where they live, and they’re fighting over who has power over that territory.’
Police launched an offensive in response, carrying out around 200 searches and seizing guns and ammunition.
Fourteen people, including two minors, were arrested in the area.
Several of those killed and arrested had criminal records, according to authorities, with charges ranging from robbery to drug trafficking.
Local paper El Universo described the killing as a ‘massacre and said that several homes in the Socio Vivienda district of the city were targeted by at least 20 armed gangsters, resulting in the deaths of nearky two dozen people.
Soldiers detain a man during an operation in the neighborhood where 22 people were killed on the eve in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on March 7, 2025
Soldiers stand guard during an operation in the neighborhood where ther violence occurred
Images and videos posted on social media showed several heavily armed men running around the district during the violent attack.
Emergency workers were also seen tending to injured people, as scores of government security forces were deployed to the area.
The government in recent weeks has doubled down on its response in Ecuador’s most violent regions, as part of President Daniel Noboa’s war on drug-trafficking gangs.
Los Tiguerones and other gangs are considered terrorist groups by the government.
Noboa, who is seeking re-election in an April runoff vote, has said military and police officers will be allowed to respond to the Guayaquil violence without fear of being punished for acting with a heavy hand.
‘Defend the country, I will defend you,’ he wrote on X.
Following Thursday’s bloodshed, the president announced a preemptive amnesty for security forces fighting drug cartels in the violence-wracked city.
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Ecuador’s president Dnaiel Noboa is committed to fighting the war on drugs in the Latin American nation
He has campaigned on his crackdown on drug cartels that have turned what was once one of Latin America’s most peaceful countries into one of its most violent.
Noboa’s leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez has criticized human rights abuses allegedly committed by the security forces in the name of the war on cartels and vowed a more humane approach.
Over a dozen members of the military are being investigated over the murder of four boys who went missing while playing football in Guayaquil in December.
Their charred bodies were later found near an army base in a case that caused widespread outrage.
Ecuador has been plunged into violence by the spread of transnational cartels that use its ports, like Guayaquil, to ship cocaine to the United States and Europe.
Homicides rose from six per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018 to a record 47 in 2023.
With the violence showing no sign of abating, Noboa’s strategy on the campaign trail has been to toughen rather than soften his rhetoric.
He recently said he would ask unspecified allied countries to send special forces to help him fight criminal gangs.
Guayaquil is the capital of Guayas, one of seven provinces where a state of emergency has been in force for the past two months.
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