Quito- The president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, announced Monday that he will close the borders with Colombia and Peru before the general elections next Sunday for “attempts to destabilize armed groups.”
“Given the attempts to destabilize armed groups, from Saturday 8 to Monday, February 10, the borders will remain closed,” the ruler, who holds a war against narco bands, said in his X account.
He added that he also had to strengthen the military presence in the border areas and “militarize the ports immediately.”
The country’s maritime terminals are used to send drugs to the United States and Europe by organizations with links with posters from Colombia and Mexico.
On Saturday, during his campaign for re -election, Noboa denounced in the same social network that his security team arrested twelve people who were seized rifles, ammunition, a police and military drone and uniforms.
The president did not detail the nationality of the detainees.
“That they go back: narcoterrorists who want to cause destabilization,” he said.
Noboa, in power since November 2023, declared war at twenty local mafias dedicated to drug trafficking, kidnapping and extortion that sow terror and death in the country, of 17 million inhabitants.
Located in El Pacífico and with a dollarized economy, Ecuador – which was considered an island of peace in the middle of Peru and Colombia, the world’s largest cocaine producers – became an appetized route for drug trafficking years ago.
Market control disputes between criminal gangs unleashed violence. In 2023, the nation closed with a record rate of 47 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.
With decrees of the state of exception -ocho in 2024, three nationwide- and the declaration of an internal armed conflict, which allows it to display the military forces in the streets and prisons, the Noboa government attributes to have reduced the rate of Murders to 38 per 100,000 people in that year.
Noboa also headed on Saturday against “false Democrats who prefer a country in ruins” and against the “Banking Press”, which he accuses of attacking his government.
