'Ready to Kill' - Ecuador's teen Sicarios murder for twenty dollars
The humanitarian photojournalist Paddy Dowling reports from Ecuador on how the government is losing the fight against organised crime networks and children continue to pay the highest price
7 hours ago
Ivan, 15, was recruited by Los Tigerones gang while serving time as a juvenile in an adult population prison for stealing food to provide for his elderly mother
Paddy Dowling/CARE Ecuador
Acountry once described by a US Drug Enforcement Agent as the “United Nations” of organised crime, Ecuador is witnessing its largest rise in violent deaths in a decade.
Ecuador registered 2,000 murders in 2021, an increase on the 1,400 registered in the previous year. As of April this year, the country had already witnessed 1,241 violent deaths. Peacetime is officially over.
The country’s continued downward spiral can, in part, be attributed to the dominance of transnational organised crime networks entrenched in every aspect of the daily life of the Latin American nation – fuelled by emboldened narco traffickers.
. . .
“I am not afraid; I am ready to kill,” explains Ivan, 15, perched on the edge of his bed in a makeshift room partitioned using old bedsheets, situated in a social housing complex in Esmeraldas, near the Colombian border.
More:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ecuador-teenagers-sicarios-murder-dollars-b2086147.html