Six people, including a two-year-old child, were killed after gunmen opened fire in a popular beach resort in Ecuador.
The attack unfolded in Puerto López, a coastal town in Ecuador’s Manabí province, on Sunday morning when several armed men arrived and began shooting at a group of people in a public area, according to police.
Regional police commander Colonel William Acurio said the assault began at around 9am local time, leaving six people dead and three others injured.
Among those killed was a toddler aged ‘approximately two years old’.
The attackers fled the scene before officers arrived. No arrests have yet been announced, and investigators believe the shooting was linked to internal disputes between organised crime groups operating in the region.
Three others were injured in the attacks after the attackers opened fire.
Police have said the motive of the crime may have stemmed from an internal dispute between criminal groups.
Ecuador is located between the world’s two top exporters of cocaine, Colombia and Peru, and has seen a surge in violence by gangs linked to Mexican and Colombian cartels.
Hardline policies instituted by its President, Daniel Noboa, have done little to stem the tide of violence to date.
Puerto López is best known as a whale-watching destination and a hub for both domestic and foreign tourism.
Local media reported that the shooting formed part of a wider surge in violence across the town over the weekend, with at least nine people killed in separate incidents.
The bloodshed comes amid a broader deterioration in security across Ecuador, where violence tied to drug trafficking routes and gang rivalries has surged in recent years.
In October, five people were shot dead at a pool hall in Santo Domingo, west of the capital Quito, after gunmen opened fire during what police described as a gang-related dispute.
A month earlier, in September, another pool hall attack left seven people dead and four wounded, one of the deadliest single shooting incidents reported in the country this year.
More recently, in December, former Ecuador international footballer Mario Pineida, 33, was killed alongside another person during an armed attack in Guayaquil, the country’s largest city. A third victim was injured.
Killings and clashes in neighbourhoods and public spaces are commonplace, and the country is on track to end the year with a record rate of 52 homicides per 100,000 residents, according to the Geneva-based Organised Crime Observatory.
The government has declared multiple states of emergency in recent years in an effort to restore order, deploying military forces to support police operations.
Despite those measures, violent attacks continue to affect both urban centres and tourist areas.
