The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has condemned the assassination of a third Ecuadorian politician in less than a month, calling for an end to the bloodshed.
In a social media post on Tuesday, the organisation wrote that it “urges the state [of Ecuador] to diligently investigate and strengthen measures to prevent political violence”.
The latest shooting took place on Monday, outside the coastal city of Esmeraldas. Pedro Briones, a local leader for the left-wing Citizen Revolution Movement, was gunned down outside his home in the rural San Mateo parish, according to the newspaper El Universo.
Two suspects reportedly approached Briones on a motorcycle, shooting him in the neck. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
Ecuador is days away from holding snap elections on August 20, after President Guillermo Lasso used his constitutional power to dissolve the National Assembly and end his presidency in May.
But the country has recently seen a spike in homicide and drug crime as drug cartels increasingly take advantage of Ecuador’s prime location, on the coast between cocaine-producing regions in Peru and Colombia.
Source from www.aljazeera.com