- Fernanda Paúl and Ángel Bermúdez
- BBC News World
“We are worried because everyone in the ward is supposedly dead and we don’t know anything about him yet.”
With these words Alexandra Jara shares with BBC Mundo the unrest he feels sorry for not having news of his nephew Josué Pacheco, one of the inmates detained at the Number 1 Center for the Deprivation of Liberty in Guayaquil, Ecuador, where this Tuesday a tough confrontation between rival gangs left at least 116 dead and dozens injured .
This Thursday morning, while standing in line at the morgue to find out what happened to the 24-year-old, Jara explained to BBC Mundo through the telephone line that until now he had not received no information about he.
“They are going to make us enter to recognize the body,” he explained, admitting that due to the number of people in line, the wait could still take many hours.
The woman assured that there are many relatives of the prisoners who have gathered there and who have expressed their discomfort by making noise and demonstrating in the street to protest.
“Here we are going to stand firm until they give us results from my nephew. We are not going to move“, It manifested.
Called “the worst prison massacre” in Ecuador’s history, the violent clash between gangs began on Tuesday (September 28) and led to President Guillermo Lasso declaring a “state of exception in the criminal system”.
Firearm detonations and explosions in various areas of the prison triggered the authorities’ alerts. When the police officers intervened, they found corpses with bullet holes and the effects of grenades.
After the massacre, one of the most devastating images was that of the relatives of the prisoners who went to the prison in search of information and lto a morgue in the south of the city to claim the body of his deceased.
The despair, disorder and chaos they reigned at the gates of the prison and the morgue, while the police tried to control the situation and, inside, doctors sought to elucidate the identity of the corpses.
“We want justice, Mr. President, at least show your face, for the mothers who are suffering here for our children,” claimed a woman at the gates of prison.
“My brother, call the police, you need to enter ward 5 (…). He’s my brother, not a dog!“Exclaimed another citizen in the same place.
“People cried out, women vanished”
The journalist of the Ecuadorian medium Primicias, Carolina Mella, was outside the morgue with the relatives.
In conversation with BBC Mundo, he tells in detail the drama that took place there.
“There were hundreds of people, mothers, grandmothers, fathers, brothers, wives, who were outside the morgue, in shock and desperate for information. Something as basic as that, ”he explained.
Mella says that many had been in uncertainty for more than 24 hours, without knowing if their relative, if their son or husband were part of the deceased.
“They not only find out from the news about what is happening, but also from photographs and videos that circulate on WhatsApp. I spoke with a young man whose brother had been murdered. I asked him if he had any information, if they had told them anything, and he replied: ‘Vlet’s head ‘“, he pointed.
“Those photographs come from within and they share them through chats and social networks. And that’s how family members find out ”.
Amid the chaos and confusion that existed in the place, Mella explains that from time to time the authorities came out with a list of names.
“Every time someone was named, cries of people could be heard, women were fading. It was like until that moment they did not want to believe that their relatives were dead ”.
With the transfer of forensic doctors and technicians from other parts of the country, the authorities are trying to speed up the process of identifying the victims, which has progressed very slowly.
By noon this Thursday, only the bodies of 4 of the 116 dead had been handed over to the relatives, according to information from Henry Coral, national director of the Police Scientific Technique, quoted by the newspaper El Comercio.
In general, family members are wary of possible reprisals, says the journalist from the Ecuadorian outlet Primicias.
“Inside the jails, in order to survive, the prisoners have to join one of the gangs. It is difficult for them to pass low profile, especially in this penitentiary, which has been known as hell itself (…) The relatives are afraid that anything they say will be misinterpreted by the gang leaders. So what reigns is silence“.
“These people live in neighborhoods that have been created as invasions, living in huts, in the mud, without access to drinking water, electricity or sewerage. With this vulnerability of poverty, these neighborhoods are taken advantage of by these criminal groups ”, he deepens.
eltiempolatino.com