Ecuadorian authorities announced that they had deployed 10,000 soldiers to counter drug trafficking gangs responsible for the rise in violence in the country, Agence France-Presse reported, noting that the deployment operation was widely covered by the media.
Ecuador, which is located between the two main cocaine exporting countries in the world - Colombia and Peru, has become a major departure point for drugs produced in the region and the country with the most violence in Latin America due to gangs linked to Mexican and Colombian drug cartels.
To deal with this phenomenon, the government of President Daniel Noboa, one of US President Donald Trump's allies in Latin America, has decided to increase the capacity of security forces to respond.
As part of the operation, hundreds of special forces soldiers arrived yesterday in the port city of Guayaquil, a nerve center for drug trafficking, to guarantee security along the coast, General Mauro Bedoya told reporters.
Defense Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo ordered the military high command to operate indefinitely from that city. Planes with military personnel were sent to another critical center - the city of Manta, the country's main fishing port.
In mid-December, the United States had already announced the deployment of troops to Ecuador as a "temporary operation" against drug trafficking.
Once one of the safest countries in the region, in 2025 Ecuador recorded 52 murders per 100,000 inhabitants - one every hour, according to the Organized Crime Monitoring Center.
In a statement, the defense ministry promised "prison or hell for anyone who threatens security".