Ecuador’s youngest mayor, 27-year-old Brigitte García, and her communications director, Jairo Loor, were found dead by gunshot wounds this morning inside a rental car. The murder took place in San Vicente, a coastal city grappling with the nation’s escalating security crisis. Preliminary investigations suggest the shots were fired from within the vehicle, according to statements by the national police.
Former President Rafael Correa and Luisa Gonzalez, a prominent figure in the Citizen Revolution Party to which García belonged, both condemned the incident as an assassination. “I have no words, in shock, nobody is safe in Ecuador NOBODY,” Gonzalez expressed on social media platform X.
So far, intense governmental efforts to combat organized crime and corruption have drawn scrutiny from the international community. President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency in January and has been aggressively pursuing criminal prosecution. His administration has labeled numerous criminal groups as terrorist organizations, following a spike in violence, including the invasion of a TV station during a live broadcast.
García’s death is the latest to highlight the perilous state of public security in Ecuador, coming after the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio last August. Villavicencio was a vocal critic of corruption and organized crime, his killing left the nation in shock just weeks before the election.
The government has vowed to intensify its fight against the forces of “disorder”, with the Ministry of Government affirming its “commitment to use all force of the State to not leave these crimes unpunished.”
