Ecuador's President has declared a state of emergency after at least five police officers were killed, nine car bombs were detonated, prison guards were taken hostage, and headless bodies were discovered hanging from bridges.
The state of emergency is for two coastal provinces, Guayas and Esmeraldasm, for the next 45 days and allows the government to limit freedom of assembly and movement.
Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso called the violent incidents “a declaration of open war” and said he was “prepared to act harshly”.
The violence was in response to a transfer of inmates from overcrowded and violent prisons.
Seven prison officers were taken hostage by inmates in protest of the prisoner transfers.
Turf wars occur between gangs over the drug trade, which has put a strain on the country's already overcrowded prison system, leading to frequent clashes.
This causes authorities to transfer inmates which then triggers unrest.
Six explosions were reported early Tuesday morning in several areas of the western city of Guayaquil, and then three explosions were reported in Esmeraldas.
Two headless bodies were found on Monday hanging from a pedestrian bridge in the city of Esmeraldas on Ecuador's northwest coast.
A police report said both victims had been "decapitated."
In the early hours of Tuesday, two police officers died when people with firearms attacked their patrol car in Guayaquil and then three more officers were gunned down later in the day in the same city and the nearby city of Duran.
Mr Lasso has said the violence is in response to drug gang retaliation that his government is attempting to clamp down on.
"What happened between last night and today in Guayaquil and Esmeraldas clearly shows the limits which the trans-national organized crime is willing to surpass", he said.
The murder rate in Ecuador nearly doubled in 2021 to 14 per 100,000 inhabitants, and reached 18 per 100,000 between January and October this year, according to official data.
The latest spate of carnage comes just months after a deadly bomb attack killed at least five and injured 17 people in Guayaquil.
Ecuador is strutted between Colombia and Peru – two of the largest cocaine-producing countries in South America – so is a strategic transit point for drugs.
Analysts said Ecuadorian gangs use terror tactics to intimidate authorities and they are concerned it may become a narco-state.
During the first eight months of this year, there were 2,785 violent deaths in Ecuador, a 10-year record that has already exceeded the total number of murders in 2021, according to police figures.
