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A sense of dread took hold in Ecuador on Wednesday, with the streets empty, schools closed and many people afraid to leave their homes after the disappearance of two gang leaders set off prison riots, police kidnappings and the on-air storming of a TV station.<\/p>\n
Even for a country accustomed to violence, the events that have rocked Ecuador this week were shocking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like the world I knew before is gone,\u201d said Mar\u00eda Ortega, a schoolteacher in Guayaquil, a sprawling coastal city. \u201cYou can know how things start, but not how they\u2019ll end.\u201d<\/p>\n
It began with violence erupting in prisons<\/a> across the South American country as soldiers surged into a penal compound in Guayaquil, after the disappearance of a powerful gang leader, Adolfo Mac\u00edas, from his cell over the weekend. Inmates at various prisons took prison guards captive, and dozens of detainees escaped, including another prominent gang leader.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The violence soon spilled over into cities and towns, where drug gangs run rampant. Explosions were reported, police officers were kidnapped, hospitals were seized and cars set on fire. People scrambled to get home, jumping on the back of trucks as bus service stopped in Guayaquil, and the police and armed people exchanged gunfire, including near a school.<\/p>\n By the end of a bloody day, at least 11 people had died throughout the country, according to the authorities, including a well-known musician, Diego Gallardo, 31, who was in his car on the way to pick up his son from school in Guayaquil when he was hit by a stray bullet.<\/p>\n The unrest peaked on Tuesday afternoon, when armed men briefly took over TC Televisi\u00f3n in Guayaquil during a live broadcast, taking anchors and staff hostage and demanding to deliver a message to the government not to interfere \u201cwith the mafias.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Not long after, the country\u2019s president, Daniel Noboa, declared an \u201cinternal armed conflict\u201d and directed the military to \u201cneutralize\u201d the country\u2019s two dozen gangs, which the government labeled \u201cterrorist organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Noboa framed the declaration as a watershed moment.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are fighting for the peace of the nation,\u201d the president said on Wednesday in a radio speech, \u201cfighting also against terrorist groups that today are made up of 20,000 people. They want me to call them groups of organized crime because it is easier. When they are terrorists, and when we live in a state of conflict, of war, other laws apply.\u201d<\/p>\n In Ecuador, the presidential declaration was widely seen as a turning point in the crisis that has subsumed the once-peaceful nation over the past two years, as the country of nearly 18 million has been dominated by an increasingly powerful narco-trafficking industry.<\/p>\n International drug cartels from as far as Albania have joined forces with local prison and street gangs, unleashing a wave of violence unlike anything in the country\u2019s recent history. Homicide rates have soared to record levels.<\/p>\n Mr. Noboa signaled the start of a new fight to push back against the gangs and to bring peace back to Ecuador.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe are not going to let society die slowly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The commander of Ecuador\u2019s armed forces, Jaime Vela Erazo, said criminal groups, which he called terrorists, had become military targets. He made clear the government\u2019s intention to apply a heavy hand.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will not back down or negotiate,\u2019\u2019 he said in a statement. \u201cGood, justice and order cannot ask for permission or bow their heads to terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n Later on Wednesday, Mr. Vela announced that since the armed conflict was declared, police and armed forces had killed five people with links to gangs and had arrested 329.<\/p>\n Around the country, many were divided over what the government\u2019s move might mean, with some expressing support and calling it a much-needed step to crack down on gang violence, and others viewing it as a slippery slope to a militarized state that targets innocent civilians.<\/p>\n \u201cThe declaration of internal conflict worries me enormously,\u201d said Katherine Casanova, a 28-year-old social worker who said her family had recently been attacked by armed men near Guayaquil. \u201cAlthough in the midst of pain I want to cling to something that makes me feel a modicum of security, I fear the repercussions of declaring an internal conflict, of militarizing. It will probably be my people who, once more, are among the dead.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Noboa\u2019s declaration came on the heels of a proposed referendum that would lengthen sentences for crimes like murder and arms trafficking, target money launderers and create a special court system to protect judges.<\/p>\n Many have compared Mr. Noboa\u2019s proposed referendum and enhanced security moves to President Nayib Bukele\u2019s autocratic campaign in El Salvador against drug gangs \u2014 a comparison Mr. Noboa has made himself<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The government\u2019s measures are \u201cmuch more aggressive\u201d than previous steps to quell gang violence, said Fernando Carri\u00f3n of the Latin American Faculty for Social Sciences, a regional research and analysis group, who studies violence and drug trafficking.<\/p>\n \u201cThe population looks favorably on this decision,\u201d he said, but added that tackling such large and entrenched gangs would be challenging.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n