QUITO, Ecuador — Ecuador’s president has declared a state of emergency in the prison system following a battle among gang members in a coastal lockup that killed at least 118 people and injured 79 in what authorities say was the worst prison bloodbath ever in the country.
Officials said at least five of the dead were found to have been beheaded.
Dozens of police and military vehicles, as well as ambulances, entered the prison compound on Thursday. Helicopters flew over the area.
There could be more bodies or seriously injured people in the prison, said Col. Tannya Varela, the national police commander.
Hundreds of people gathered outside the crime lab in Guayaquil, hoping to collect the bodies of relatives they believed were killed in the prison. The prosecutors’ office said on Twitter that police were working to identify bodies.
Henry Coral, a police official, asked family members to help speed the identification of bodies by telling authorities about any tattoo, scar or other distinguishing feature of prisoners believed to have been killed. Some bodies were mutilated or burned, making identification harder.
President Guillermo Lasso decreed a state of emergency Wednesday, which will give the government powers that include deploying police and soldiers inside prisons. The order came a day after bloodshed at the Litoral penitentiary in Guayaquil that officials blamed on gangs linked to international drug cartels fighting for control of the facility.
“It is regrettable that the prisons are being turned into territories for power disputes by criminal gangs,” Lasso said, adding that he would act with “absolute firmness” to regain control of the Litoral prison and prevent the violence from spreading to other penitentiaries.
Images circulating on social media showed dozens of bodies in the prison’s Pavilions 9 and 10 and scenes that looked like battlefields. The fighting was with firearms, knives and bombs, officials said.