News Beat
At least six people including two-year-old shot dead after gunmen open fire on tourist beach in horror attack
SIX people, including a two-year-old girl, have been killed in a shooting in a tourist hotspot.
The attack took place in Puerto Lopez, a beach resort in southwestern Ecuador.
Several men, armed with automatic weapons, opened fire on a group of people in the city.
The shooters began their assault at 9am local time, police alleged.
A girl aged “approximately two years old” was among the victims, regional police commander Colonel William Acurio, told the media.
The police commander said that the attack killed six and left three others injured.
He added that attackers “fled” the scene after the shooting.
Police are still searching for the suspects, with initial investigations suggesting internal disputes between gangs are to blame for the tragedy.
The area, in Ecuador’s Manabí province, is a popular whale-watching destination.
Local reports suggest the attack is part of a wave of violence this weekend which saw a total of nine people killed in Puerto Lopez.
Violent crime has been on the rise in Ecuador for several years.
In one incident, a man believed to be a British national was lynched and burnt alive in a popular eco-tourism area on the country’s border with Colombia.
The horrific killing happened in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve in Ecuador’s Amazon region.
In another eruption of gang violence earlier this year, an ex-beauty queen was shot dead in front of her baby daughter.
Esther Gabriela Murillo Cruz, 25, was ambushed by two men on a motorbike who sprayed the vehicle with bullets.
The embattled South American country has seen its murder rate rise eightfold as brutal gangs battle to control the cocaine trade.
Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, has defended his hardline policy against organised crime, even declaring the country to be fighting an internal war with gangs.
Yet the violence continues, with the country becoming Latin America’s murder capital.
Massacres and armed clashes have become the norm – Ecuador will end the year with a record murder rate of 52 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Geneva-based Organised Crime Observatory.
