Get our news on your inbox! x

Remember me Forgot password

MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, September 21st 2024 - 12:12 UTC

Tag: Ecuador

  • Saturday, September 9th 2023 - 09:42 UTC

    Kidnapped Ecuadorian councilman found dead

    Vera had been elected councilman of Durán for the 2023-2027 period

    Councilman Bolívar Vera, 42, of the municipality of Durán was kidnapped and murdered in a new episode of Ecuador's political violence saga one month ahead of the presidential runoff. Vera's body was found Friday on a road in the rural sector of Salitre with his hands tied in the province of Guayas, it was also reported. He had been reported missing on Thursday, Sept. 7.

  • Thursday, August 31st 2023 - 07:15 UTC

    Multiple explosions rock Quito downtown in suspected car bomb attack

    Images from the scene show a burnt car and a nearby cylinder that is believed to be a gas cylinder.

    A car bomb, believed to be loaded with two gas cylinders and dynamite sticks, caused multiple explosions in a commercial area of Quito on Wednesday night. The event is generating concern due to the ongoing climate of violence in Ecuador.

  • Tuesday, August 22nd 2023 - 10:29 UTC

    Ecuador voted to ban mining and oil drilling in an Amazon national park

    With over 90% of the ballots counted, some six in 10 Ecuadorians rejected the oil exploration in Block 44, situated within Yasuni National Park

    The Ecuadorian electorate voted on Sunday against oil drilling, according to results of an election-day referendum published early Monday. Voters were asked whether to ban mining in the highlands and further oil drilling in Yasuni National Park in the Amazon.

  • Monday, August 21st 2023 - 11:30 UTC

    Elections in Ecuador: González and Noboa advance to runoff

    González urged her followers to prevent Noboa from becoming “Lasso 2.0”

    Luisa González of former President Rafel Correa's Revolucion Ciudadana (RC) was the most-voted candidate in Sunday's elections in Ecuador marred by last week's murder of Movimiento Construye's (MC) hopeful Fernando Villavicencio.

  • Saturday, August 19th 2023 - 10:31 UTC

    Ecuador: 3 people arrested in Manta mayor murder probe

    “There is a fourth person” involved in the crime, but he is already in jail, Zapata explained

    Ecuadorian authorities Friday announced the arrest of three people suspected of being involved in the July 23 murder of Manta Mayor Agustín Intriago and a young woman when gunmen opened fire at a municipal construction site.

  • Tuesday, August 15th 2023 - 10:02 UTC

    Another Ecuadorian politician shot dead

    Briones belonged to Revolución Ciudadana of former President Rafael Correa

    Ecuadorian politician Pedro Briones of former President Rafael Correa's Revolución Ciudadana (RC) party, was shot dead just days after the killing of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio of the Movimiento Construye.

  • Monday, August 14th 2023 - 10:08 UTC

    Ecuadorian party picks yet a new candidate to replace Villavicencio

    Zurita and González Náder wear police bulletproof vests

    Only hours after announcing that Vice Presidential candidate Andrea González Náder would pick up the baton from the assassinated Fernando Villavicencio, Ecuador's Movimiento Construye recanted Sunday and picked journalist Christian Zurita to top the ticket for the Aug. 20 elections. Náder thus returned to her original slot, it was explained in Quito.

  • Friday, August 11th 2023 - 11:17 UTC

    Major haul of cocaine in Rotterdam: eight tons in a shipment of Ecuadorean bananas

    The cocaine was hidden in a container alongside bananas on a ship that had arrived from Ecuador. Some 8,000 packets of the drug were discovered in the containers.

    Ecuador again is headlines. Netherlands authorities have seized eight tons of cocaine in the port of Rotterdam, prosecutors announced on Thursday. The drug is valued at an estimated US$660 million and represents the biggest haul ever recorded at the port. The last biggest was a 4,500-kilogram haul made in 2020.

  • Thursday, August 10th 2023 - 11:25 UTC

    Hitmen assassinate Presidential candidate in Ecuador

    A former journalist and assemblyman, the 59-year-old Villavicencio was said to be very close to President Lasso

    Presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio died after being attacked by hitmen on his way out of a campaign rally in downtown Quito ahead of the upcoming Aug. 20 elections, Interior Minister Juan Zapata confirmed in the Ecuadorian capital. Other people were wounded, it was reported.

  • Saturday, August 5th 2023 - 10:50 UTC

    Nine Ecuadorian prison officials arrested after police raids

    President Guillermo Lasso explained that these operations had been undertaken “for the safety of the citizens and of the people deprived of their freedom”

    Ecuadorian authorities confirmed Friday that nine officials from the country's prisons bureau in the city of Guayaquil had been arrested after weapons, explosives, and drugs were found in their offices “following the inspection of wards in the Penitenciaría del Litoral,” the Prosecutor's Office said on its Twitter account after some 2,000 troops carried out three raids resulting in “the seizure of firearms, bladed weapons, ammunition, explosives, drugs, among other prohibited objects.”