Spanish
Guayaquil, Ecuador.- The Ecuadorian Police found this Sunday five human heads hanging from cane poles on the beach of the municipality of Puerto López, in the province of Manabí, one of the most affected by the unprecedented wave of criminal violence that the Andean country is experiencing.
Furthermore, above the heads there was a sign with an apparent warning directed at people who would be robbing and extorting fishermen.
The police chief, along with criminalistics personnel and the violent deaths department, moved to the site, and "tactical, investigative, and intelligence units were deployed in the territory to gather the first clues to clarify this event," the institution detailed in a brief statement.
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On December 28th, six people were killed in an armed attack in Puerto López, including a two-year-old girl. Preliminarily, the massacre was attributed to the dispute between criminal groups operating in the area. Manabí is one of the nine provinces that are under a state of exception decreed by President Daniel Noboa on December 31st due to the increase in violence. At least twelve murders were reported on Saturday alone in various armed attacks recorded in the municipalities of Manta, Montecristi and El Carmen, according to reports from local media. The country has been living since 2024 under a state of "internal armed conflict" declared by Noboa to intensify the fight against organized crime. However, 2025 closed with a record number of homicides, counting around 9,300, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior.
