Ecuadoran hate crimes prosecutor murdered

A prosecutor who investigated hate crimes and femicide was murdered outside the Ecuadoran public prosecutor's office in Guayaquil, the government body said.

Edgar Escobar was "shot" by gunmen outside the building where he worked in the port city, the public prosecutor's office said on Twitter.

The murder comes at a time when Ecuador is reeling from a surge in violence related to drug trafficking in which rivals gangs have sown terror in Guayaquil and its prison system.

Ecuador lies between Colombia and Peru, the world's two largest producers of cocaine. The motive for the crime is still unknown.

The public prosecutor's office said two suspects were arrested during a police operation on a hill in the city, the country's commercial hub.

"In the police action a motorbike and the weapon used to shoot the victim were seized," said the public prosecutor's office.

Last month, a judge in the Amazonian town of Lago Agrio on the border with Colombia was shot dead.

And two months ago, the public prosecutor in the port town of Manta was also killed by gunmen.

Escobar's murder comes  soon after the disappearance of lawyer Maria Belen Bernal, 34, from a police school in Quito.

A week ago, Bernal went to the school to visit her husband, German Caceres, who worked there.

Crime has been on the rise in the country of 18 million. In 2021, the murder rate almost doubled from the previous year to 14 per 100,000 inhabitants.