Gunmen storm Ecuador tv studio during live broadcast
By Wilson Adekumola
Gunmen men have broken into television studio in Ecuador during a live broadcast and threatened staff.
This was revealed in a footage posted on YouTube by AP news.
A footage showed that over a dozen masked men broke into the set of a public television waving gun and shouting during a live broadcast.
The men armed with pistols and what looked like sticks of dynamite, entered a station identified as TC in the city of Guayaquil and interrupted a news program.
Staff were forced to lie on the floor as the incident was aired live to thousand of home across the nation before the station signal was cut off after about 15 minutes.
A 60-day state of emergency began in Ecuador on Monday after a convicted gang leader vanished from his prison cell.
The hooded men were seen leaving the TC studios, with police seen entering the set about 30 minutes after the gunmen first appeared.
National police units in Quito and Guayaquil have been deployed to the scene.
The country’s National Police Force said in an update on X, formerly Twitter, that staff had been evacuated from the studio.
In his reaction to the incident, President Daniel Noboa signed an Executive Order declaring an internal armed conflict and listed several organised crime groups as “terrorist organisations” and “non-state actors”.
At least seven police officers have been kidnapped by gang members since the state of emergency was declared.
The measures were introduced by President Noboa after the boss of the Los Choneros gang disappeared from a maximum security jail on Sunday.
Nearly 40 other inmates, including another convicted drug lord, broke out from another prison in the city of Riobamba in the early hours of Tuesday.
However, it is not clear at this stage whether the storming of the television station is linked to the prison escape, but the incident was revealed the worsen security situation in the country.
