#drug-war

#drug-war

Ecuador is in the grip of a violent drug war with record killings and the military deployed on the streets. As the government crackdown intensifies, a troubling pattern has emerged. At least 50 people detained by security forces have disappeared since 2024. One of them is Jonathan Villon, a father of three taken by soldiers in broad daylight in December 2024. His family has video of him in the back of a military truck on the day he was taken, and he has not been seen since.

But almost 20 years ago, just a few blocks from the town square where the mayor was gunned down at point-blank range, another event occurred that marked the country's recent memory. In the early morning of September 6, 2006, about 20 hooded men with assault rifles, dressed in police uniforms, stormed into a nightclub, firing shots. Before leaving, they took five human heads out of a bag and left them on the dance floor.

He warned that Mr Petro "better close-up" drug operations "or the United States will close them up for him, and it won't be done nicely". Mr Trump, while at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, wrote on his Truth Social platform that Petro is "strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs, in big and small fields" across Colombia, which the Republican president spelt as Columbia.