Noboa extends state of emergency in seven provinces and two cantons due to continued violence

President Daniel Noboa extended this week the state of emergency for 30 more days in seven provinces and two municipalities, including Quito, to curb insecurity and maintain public order.

Police and military personnel check bus passengers for drugs and weapons under terms of the declaration of emergency.

The measure restricts the rights of the inviolability of domicile and transit in the affected areas. The state of emergency was first declared in January 2024 due to persistent violence and what the government claimed was “internal armed conflict” near the country’s ports.

Despite the emergency declarations, violence remains high in the coastal region, according to a United Nations report. The increase in coca cultivation in Colombia and the use of Ecuador, Brazil, and Peru as transit countries have contributed to this phenomenon.

Between 2016 and 2022, violence in Ecuador increased by more than 400%. The homicide rate increased by 94.7% between 2021 and 2022, with the highest rates observed in the coastal and neighboring provinces. Since 2018, disputes between local gangs and Mexican criminal groups have intensified violence, especially in port and border areas. Drug seizures in Ecuador have risen steadily, reflecting the increase in drug trafficking through the country.

Ecuador’s Andean region has mostly escaped the crime surge and several of its major cities have, paradoxically, seen a decrease in the crime.

Citing “grave internal commotion,” Noboa’s new Executive Decree 552 provides for the extended state of emergency in the provinces of Guayas, Los Rios, Manabi, Orellana, Santa Elena, El Oro, and Sucumbios, as well as Quito and Camilo Ponce Enriquez, in Azuay Province. The president ordered the National Assembly, the Constitutional Court, the UN, and the Organization of American States (OAS) to be notified of the measure.

Earlier this year, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court ruled that the conditions were not met to speak of “an internal armed conflict,” as Noboa had argued in January 2024 when issuing the decree involving the Armed Forces in internal security operations. Since then, the president has referred to an “overflow of violent acts.”