Ecuador's youngest mayor was found shot to death Sunday, police said, as the South American country approaches its third month of a state of emergency decreed by the government to crack down on soaring gang violence.
Brigitte Garcia, the 27-year-old mayor of coastal San Vicente, was found dead along with her adviser, the municipality's communications director, Jairo Loor.
During the early hours of the morning "two people were identified inside a vehicle without vital signs, with gunshot wounds," the Ecuadoran national police said on social media.
Later, it added that the shots "were not fired from the outside of the vehicle but from the inside." Investigators are still analyzing the route taken by the car, which had been rented.
Luisa Gonzalez, the party's presidential candidate in the recent elections, called Garcia's killing an assassination.
"I've just found out they've assassinated our fellow mayor of San Vicente Brigitte Garcia," Gonzalez said in a post.
One of Garcia's last posts on social media, where she touts herself as the nation's youngest mayor, was about a new project to bring water to her municipality.
"Together, we're building a brighter future for our community," she wrote on Thursday.
In January, President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency and announced that the country was in "a state of war" against gangs following a surge of violence triggered by the escape of "Los Choneros" leader Adolfo "Fito" Macias from prison.
During that same month, Noboa issued orders to "neutralize" criminal gangs after a group of gunmen attacked a TV studio and threatened to randomly execute civilians and security forces.
Since then, the military has been deployed in the streets and has taken charge of the country's prisons, where a series of gang riots in recent years have resulted in the deaths of approximately 460 individuals.
The government asserts that its "Phoenix Plan" has effectively reduced the country's escalating violence.
According to official reports, security forces have conducted around 165,000 operations, made over 12,000 arrests, eliminated 15 individuals classified as "terrorists," and confiscated roughly 65 tons of drugs since January.
In the Andean city of Latacunga, a bomb threat led to the evacuation of a stadium where a professional soccer championship match was taking place.
Following Garcia's assassination, the government has announced plans to strengthen security controls.
Once known for its peaceful environment in Latin America, Ecuador is now facing a crisis due to the increasing presence of transnational cartels using its ports to traffic drugs to the United States and Europe.
