The recent escalation of violence in Ecuador could generate a wave of refugees to neighboring countries in South America. This is the opinion of Fernando Brancoli, professor of International Relations at The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, who spoke to Brasil de Fato on Thursday.
The researcher pointed out that Peru, which borders Ecuador, has already declared a state of emergency and increased security in the region on Wednesday. “There is already fear, for example, on the part of neighboring countries, that they may start receiving refugees from Ecuador, who will be people forced to leave their homes amid the escalating violence,” he said.
Brancoli also pointed out the links between the increased violence experienced by Ecuadorians and drug trafficking and organized crime in other countries. “Drug trafficking in the region has changed. We’ve had important changes in Colombia, which is a major cocaine producer, and we’ve also had changes in Mexico in recent years. And Ecuador ended up appearing on the map for these drug trafficking groups as a strategic area. That’s because it’s right on the border with Colombia and Peru, which are important cocaine producers, and it also has important ports for transporting this cocaine to both the United States and Europe,” he said.
The professor also commented on Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa’s decision to declare a state of emergency and civil war against criminal groups in the country. “From a practical point of view, the government is saying that the drug trafficking groups are so powerful that they can threaten the state, they can try to overthrow the state,” he explains.
According to him, there are short-, medium- and long-term measures to try to control the chaos in the country, but they are challenges. “From an immediate practical point of view, what you can do is deal with countries that are consuming this type of drug, which is still sometimes difficult to do. In the medium and long term, we have to restructure the criminal justice system, we have to deal with drug addicts often with the health system and not with a security dynamic and try to deal with them in a broader way,” he said.
Ecuador is experiencing a wave of violence that has worsened in the last week following the escape of a leader of the country’s organized crime. The situation worsened after the president decreed a state of emergency on Monday, which triggered a series of attacks that included bombings and even a raid by an armed group on a television channel.
On Wednesday, Noboa reacted and declared a state of civil war against a list of criminal groups in the country. Amid the wave of violence, a Brazilian citizen was kidnapped in the city of Guayaquil and released with the help of the police on Wednesday night. The information was confirmed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which had been monitoring and trying to verify the case since the complaint was made by his son on social media.
This article was adapted and translated from an article originally published on Brasil de Fato.
