The week began with the discovery of two headless bodies, left dangling from a pedestrian bridge. Then prison guards were taken hostage by inmates, nine car bombs detonated in two coastal cities and five police officers were shot dead.
The string of horrifying attacks across Ecuador this week would once have been unthinkable, but this kind of bloodletting is now becoming almost routine in the Andean country, as gang violence escalates to levels never seen before.
