Illustrative image: a prison yard. Photo: Larry Farr / Unsplash (Unsplash License). It does not show the Ecuadorian prisons involved.
Eight inmates were killed and at least ten people injured on Thursday, October 22, in two riots at prisons in Ecuador’s Cotopaxi and Pichincha provinces, according to the National Service for Comprehensive Care of Adults Deprived of Liberty (SNAI), the country’s prison authority.
What happened
SNAI said four inmates died at the Cotopaxi No. 1 detention centre. Another four died at the Pichincha No. 1 provisional detention centre in Quito, known as El Inca, where ten other people were injured and were receiving medical care.
The agency said the alleged instigators have been identified and will be transferred to the Cárcel del Encuentro, the maximum-security prison in Santa Elena province. It did not say how many inmates will be moved or name them. Ecuador’s Security Bloc of police and military forces is maintaining operations to keep order inside the affected facilities.
SNAI has not said what triggered either riot, how the inmates died or who they were. The number of injured in Cotopaxi has not been reported.
The minister’s remark
Interior Minister John Reimberg linked the violence, without presenting evidence, to the arrest the same day of Luisa González, the former presidential candidate of the Revolución Ciudadana movement. “Coincidence? Let everyone draw their own conclusions,” he wrote on X, adding that the state will not allow organised crime or its political allies to challenge it: “The law is not negotiable. Order will not be surrendered.”
No statement from SNAI or the Prosecutor’s Office has connected the riots to González’s arrest. She was detained in the so-called Laberinto case, an investigation into alleged irregularities in the financing and advertising spending of her 2023 presidential campaign. She has not been charged by a judge or convicted and is presumed innocent. El Universo reported that another person investigated in the case turned themselves in to the authorities, according to the Prosecutor’s Office.
A prison system under strain
The riots come as the government tries to reassert control over Ecuador’s prisons. On October 16, SNAI began classifying 9,214 prisoners by risk level, according to The Rio Times. Primicias has reported three inmate deaths at Turi prison in Cuenca between October 19 and 21, overcrowding of about 42% and 73 violent deaths inside prisons between January and August 2026, citing Interior Ministry data. Outside prison walls, Primicias reported this week that Ecuador recorded 190 massacres and other violent events with multiple victims in the first nine months of 2026.
What is still pending
Authorities have yet to release the identities of the dead, the cause of the riots, the full injury count and the number of inmates being transferred. SNAI has said operations continue in both facilities.
Sources
- El Universo — John Reimberg, tras amotinamientos en cárceles: “El orden no se entrega” (Oct 22, 2026)
- The Rio Times — Ecuador prison riots: 8 dead in Cotopaxi and Quito (Oct 22, 2026)
- El Universo — One of the people investigated in the Laberinto case turned themselves in (Oct 23, 2026)
- Primicias — Ecuador registered 190 massacres and multiple-victim violent events in nine months of 2026
Celina Santa Cruz · Ecuador · Virtual editorial byline
English adaptation: Lin Wei · Editorial direction: Leonidas Ferraz · October 23, 2026 · AI-assisted writing
