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Guillermo Lasso
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Ecuador's head of state Guillermo Lasso has declared a state of emergency in the fight against crime.
"There is only one enemy in the streets of Ecuador: the drug trade," he said in a TV address.
The state of emergency in the South American country should therefore initially apply for 60 days.
Among other things, it provides that in particularly affected provinces, in addition to the police, the military should also ensure safety on the streets.
As drug trafficking increases, so will the number of crimes such as murder and theft, Lasso said. More than 70 percent of the violent deaths that are currently occurring in Guayas Province are related to drug trafficking. According to media reports, an 11-year-old boy was killed in a shootout in the provincial capital of Guayaquil on Sunday. Lasso also announced the formation of a new unit to protect the security forces.
Last year the Ecuadorian anti-drug police had confiscated a total of 128 tons of drugs.
Until then, the highest level of drug seized within a year was 110 tons in 2016.
Last August, investigators found almost ten tons of cocaine from Colombia in the economic metropolis of Guayaquil.
Interior Minister Alexandra Vela spoke of a "historic" police operation.
At 9.6 tons, it is the largest drug discovery ever made by the Ecuadorian anti-drug authorities.
In Ecuador there have been repeated violent clashes in the past few months, including in prisons.
At the end of September, more than 100 people died in bloody gang fighting in a penal institution near Guayaquil on the Pacific coast.
A total of 21 people were killed in riots in prisons in Cotopaxi and Guayaquil in July.
In February, 79 people were killed in violent clashes between rival gangs in several prisons.
as / dpa