On Sunday, 10 people were killed and 10 others, including children, were wounded in two armed attacks that took place in the Ecuadorian coastal city of Guayaquil, which is witnessing bloody violence between drug gangs, officials said.
The shootings took place in two slums of the city, which have seen at least three similar attacks since April.
On Monday, the Public Prosecution announced that the first shooting took place in the "City Lago" neighborhood in the south of the city, killing 4 people and injuring 10 others, including children aged two, 13, and 14 years.
The second attack took place in northern Guayaquil, in which 6 people were killed.
Similar attacks abound in Ecuador, especially in the large tourist city of Guayaquil in the southwest of the country, and they often result from a struggle for influence between gangs competing for drug markets and smuggling routes.
Ecuador, with a population of 18 million, sandwiched between Colombia and Peru, the world's two largest producers of cocaine, is experiencing the worst escalation of violence in its recent history.
Guayaquil, home to three million people, has become a hub for drug shipments to the United States and Europe.
The country adopts the US dollar as its currency, which is an additional attraction for drug gangs.
Confrontations between drug trafficking gangs have led to repeated crimes in prisons, with more than 420 prisoners killed since February 2021, as a large number of them were beheaded or burned alive.
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