Twelve people were killed and several others injured after gunmen dressed in fake military uniforms opened fire on spectators at a cockfight in rural Ecuador, police reported Friday.
The attack took place Thursday night in the community of La Valencia, located in northwestern Ecuador. Security footage showed at least five armed men storming the crowded arena and indiscriminately firing automatic weapons into the audience. Spectators were seen scrambling for cover, some diving beneath seats in a desperate bid to survive.
“This was an armed assault by a criminal group. We have 12 deceased and several injured,” police colonel Renan Miller Rivera said in an official statement.
The attackers wore military-style outfits — a common tactic used by criminal gangs in Ecuador to sow confusion and fear. Following the assault, authorities discovered two abandoned vehicles near the scene, one of which had been torched and the other overturned. Discarded uniforms resembling those of the military were also found.
National police chief Victor Hugo Zarate stated on X (formerly Twitter) that four suspects have been detained, including one described as a “target of intermediate value.”
Ecuador, a country of 18 million nestled between Colombia and Peru — the world’s top cocaine producers — has become a key trafficking route. Criminal groups, estimated at around 20 major gangs, engage in drug smuggling, extortion, and kidnapping, and have turned the nation into a hotspot for cartel violence.
The interior ministry estimates that nearly 73% of the world’s cocaine flows through Ecuador’s ports. At the start of 2024, the country was averaging one murder every hour.
In response to the spiraling violence, large regions remain under a state of emergency, recently extended by President Daniel Noboa. Freshly re-elected, Noboa has called for international support, even suggesting the deployment of U.S. special forces and legislative changes to allow American military bases in the country.