Over 79 inmates dead in prison riots in Ecuador

Ecuador on Wednesday increased the death toll from riots in four prisons to 79, including 18 prisoners disbanded in one place, one of the bloodiest outbreaks of prison violence in the country's history.

But even as authorities said they regained control after the initial riots, Ecuador's national police chief wrote on Twitter that a new mutiny was underway in Guayaquil prison on Wednesday night.

According to authorities, police and troops were stationed in detention centers in the cities of Guayaquil, Cuenca, and Latacunga, where gangs battled each other with hand-held weapons on Tuesday, according to authorities, a coordinated outbreak of violence.

Several of Tuesday's confrontations took place in the maximum security areas of the Guayaquil and Cuenca prisons.

The SNAI prison authority said all those killed during the riot were prisoners, with the first reports of 50 dead, before rising to 62 in the latest news. According to official data, a further dozen prisoners and police were injured.

The Ecuadorian prosecutor's office opened an investigation into the riots and said in a statement that it had found 18 broken bodies in one of the prisons.

Residents' family members stayed outside the prisons on Wednesday, hoping for information about their loved ones.

Moreno declared Ecuador's prison system a state of emergency in 2019 after a spate of incidents that killed 24 people.