CNN —More than 90 prison security agents are currently being held by inmates across five different prisons in Ecuador, according to the country’s penitentiary service SNAI, amid escalating violence in the country which saw the mayor of Ecuador’s sixth largest city killed over the weekend. Together with the National Police, SNAI said it was working to secure the agents’ release and return prisons to normal operations. Inmates at several prisons have begun hunger strikes as they demand better conditions in the cells. Hundreds of inmates have been killed in recent years in Ecuador as members of competing criminal organizations square off with each other inside the prisons, which are often self-ruled by the criminal organizations. A woman cries outside outside the Guayas 1 prison a day after a fight between rival gangs left six inmates dead in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on July 24, 2023.

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Persons: SNAI, ’, Agustin Intriago, Juan Zapata, Marcos Pin, Ariana Chancay, Guillermo Lasso, “, ” Intriago, Lasso, Luisa Gonzalez, Otto Sonnenholzner, Yaku Perez, Intriago Organizations: CNN, National Police, Manta, Getty, Authorities, Twitter Locations: Ecuador, Ecuador’s, Guayaquil, AFP, Ecuadorian, South America, United States, Canada, Asia, Colombia