Ecuador Relocates Police HQ to Manta Amid Violence Spike

Ecuadorian navy marines patrol the streets from armored tanks and frisk citizens stopped at a checkpoint in Manta, on Ecuador's central coast, a day after President Daniel Noboa announced he would temporarily move the headquarters of the police and armed forces to the port city, a drug-trafficking operations center where a substitute legislator was shot dead.

The president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, said that he will temporarily move the headquarters of the police and armed forces to the port city of Manta, a drug trafficking operation center where a substitute legislator was shot dead.

Noboa did not specify more details or how long the transfer of command of these institutions, whose headquarters operate in the Ecuadorian capital, like the Executive, will last.

Alternate assemblyman Cristhian Nieto and two other people, including his wife, were shot during a circus performance in the port of Manta, one of the centers of drug trafficking operations.

34 years old and from the opposition Citizen Revolution party, Nieto was a substitute assembly member for legislator Mónica Salazar, representative for the province of Los Ríos.

At least a dozen politicians have been murdered since the 2023 election campaigns in Ecuador, once considered an island of peace in the middle of Peru and Colombia, the world's largest cocaine producers.

In recent years, the country has become a logistics center for shipping drugs to the United States, Europe and Central America.

The Minister of the Interior, Mónica Palencia, reported at the same meeting that the police have seized more than 121 tons of drugs so far this year. In 2023, 219 tons were seized.

Last year was also the bloodiest for Ecuador. Homicides rose to a record of 47 per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to the rate of 6 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018.