The violence in Ecuador

Illustration image. Dolores Ochoa / AP  

Ecuadorian gangs demand companies on 'vaccine fees'  

 

The corona pandemic is described as an explanation for the recent increase in crime in Ecuador, AP writes. In addition to the fact that the number of violent acts with a fatal outcome has increased sharply since last year, the number of robberies is also increasing.  

 

In the economic crisis in the wake of the pandemic, it became easy for the country's powerful drug cartels to recruit the young and unemployed. The gang has now started going to companies with demands for money, called "vacuna" - a "vaccine" to avoid crime. 

 

- Covid came and went and gave us vaccines, but a different type of vaccine, says Holbach Muñeton at a national tourism board.  

 

Another explanation is that there was a power vacuum when cartel leader Jorge Zambrano was assassinated in 2020.  

 

Illustration image. Dolores Ochoa / AP  

Robbery scares Belen: "Life not as it used to be"  

 

32-year-old Belen Diaz is one of many residents of the city of Guayaquil who are worried about the development of violence in Ecuador. For AP, she tells that she has been robbed seven times in the course of three years.  

 

Nowadays, she always carries two mobile phones, prepared to give away the least valuable one if she were to be exposed again. On it, she's downloaded apps to make it look like it's her primary. 

 

She goes on to say that she no longer goes out in the evenings, and that she stopped using dating apps because the person she chats with could be a kidnapper.  

 

- Life is not what it used to be.