A turbulent day of violent riots erupted at a prison in southwestern Ecuador on Sunday, resulting in the tragic deaths of at least 31 inmates, as confirmed by the nation’s prison authority.

According to a statement released on X by the SNAI prison agency, 27 inmates in the coastal town of Machala succumbed to asphyxiation and ‘immediate death by hanging.’ However, further details about the circumstances of their deaths were not provided.

Officials are actively working to “fully clarify the facts,” with forensic medical teams on the ground to gather and verify crucial information.

Earlier on Sunday, SNAI had initially reported the deaths of four individuals due to the violent unrest, which was eventually subdued by tactical police intervention.

The chaos erupted around 3:00 a.m. (0800 GMT) at the facility, with local residents recounting the terrifying sounds of gunfire, explosions, and desperate cries for help emanating from inside the prison walls.

Elite police units swiftly moved in to regain control shortly after the riot commenced, the agency reported.

But it did not specify the identities of the deceased or confirm whether the violence was another case of inter-gang fighting.

Four people died in the morning violence, while 33 inmates and one police officer were injured, SNAI said. 

Twenty-seven prisoners in port town Machala died due to asphyxiation and ‘immediate death by hanging,’ according to a statement shared on X by the SNAI prisons agency

Authorities said they were still working to ‘fully clarify the facts,’ and forensic medical personnel were on site to verify information

Police officers stand guard at the entrance of the prison after an armed riot that left four dead and dozens more injured in Machala, Ecuador on November 9, 2025

Earlier Sunday, SNAI reported four deaths due to deadly rioting, which was brought under control by tactical police 

That riot was prompted by a reorganisation of the prisoners in a new maximum security facility, the statement said.

Ecuadoran prisons have become operational centers for rival drug-trafficking gangs, with over 500 inmates killed in fighting between groups competing to control the lucrative but illegal trade. 

They are now considered the ‘epicenter’ of the country’s organised crime, according to a 2024 report by Insight Crime think tank. 

President Daniel Noboa’s administration, which has pledged to take a tough stance on crime, blames the violence on rival gangs battling for dominance and territorial control.

In September, a riot caused by gang fighting in the same prison left 14 people dead and another 14 wounded.

In that incident, prisoners used guns and explosives and an unknown number escaped. Some were recaptured. 

Days later, another 17 people were killed in a prison riot in the northern city of Esmeraldas, near the border with Colombia. 

Bloody fighting broke out in a prison in the troubled coastal city, where police said they found 10 dead prisoners in two cell blocks.

Images of the aftermath shared on social media and verified by AFP showed dead men sprawled on the ground with bare, blood-stained torsos, at least two of them decapitated. 

Dozens of worried family members gathered outside the prison for news of their loved ones as the SNAI prison authority raised the official toll from 10to 17 within a few hours.

‘There are women here who have been asking after their relatives since 5:30am,’ an anguished woman, who asked not to be named, told AFP at the time.

She herself rushed to the prison after receiving a call from people who live nearby and told her ‘they heard the shooting, they heard the screams.’

When she arrived, she said, soldiers told her to go to the morgue to check if her loved one was dead or alive.

Since February 2021, gang wars have largely played out inside the country’s prisons, where inmates have often been killed in gruesome fashion – their bodies dismembered and burnt. 

Police officers stand guard in front of a prison in Esmeraldas, Ecuador on September 25, 2025

Ecuador’s biggest prison massacre also took place in 2021, when more than 100 inmates were killed in the port city of Guayaquil in the southwest. 

Inmates have on more than one occasion gone live on social media to broadcast their violent campaigns, showing off the decapitated and charred bodies of their enemies.

Last year, gang members took scores of prison guards hostage after the jailbreak of narco boss Jose Adolfo Macias, known as Fito, while allies on the outside detonated bombs and held a television presenter at gunpoint live on air. 

Nestled between Peru and Colombia, the world’s two largest cocaine producers, Ecuador has become a major hub for the global cocaine trade. 

More than 70 per cent of all cocaine produced in the world now passes through Ecuador’s ports, according to government data. 

The tiny country of some 18 million people has become engulfed in violence in the past few years and is now one of the most dangerous places in Latin America.

The roots of this crisis ‘can be traced directly to the country’s prison system and the criminal networks that have evolved inside of it,’ Insight Crime found.