Ecuador’s largest city has been transformed into a virtual ghost town by a stunning wave of criminal violence that prompted the South American country’s recently elected president to declare his country was in “a state of war”.
On Thursday, the streets of Guayaquil – a normally teeming port city of about 3 million residents – remained eerily quiet after a succession of arson attacks, car bombings, shootings and prison riots in different parts of the country claimed as many as 15 lives.
