From https://indomita.media/encerrados-para-morir :
“All the patients who have come in from prison have symptoms of tuberculosis, extreme malnutrition, and dehydration. I have seen about 20 young men die.”
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There is concrete evidence that tuberculosis has worsened in prisons since the declaration of armed conflict. Data from the Ministry of Health show that cases rose from 641 in 2023 to 1.498 in 2024, then reached 2.576 in 2025 — quadrupling in just two years. The Litoral Penitentiary is the most critical prison : it accounts for 71% of all cases reported behind bars. It is also one of the most overcrowded : cells built for four people hold up to twelve inmates.
As early as 2024, a technical report by the Ministry of Health, reviewed by this team, showed staggering figures in three coastal prisons : in Machala, the incidence rate climbed to 16.810 per 100.000 people ; in the Litoral Penitentiary, it reached 9.954 ; and in Esmeraldas prison, 9.115.
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[Many testimonies describe deaths that were not even reported to the families, with bodies sent to collective graves.]
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The Ministry of Health says that in 2025 only 61 people died from tuberculosis — just 11% of “natural” deaths — while the SNAI has not explained what diseases account for the remaining 89%. Experts point to an undercount of tuberculosis deaths. There are signs of it.
We obtained a forensic database containing records for 394 inmates who died in the Litoral Penitentiary between January and August of that year, and analyzed it with physician Clara Freile. Of the total, 309 people had causes of death associated with respiratory illnesses aggravated by malnutrition. Only 21% of them had a confirmed tuberculosis diagnosis.
But among the other 79%, the same forensic conclusions appear again and again: myocardial infarction, pneumonia, respiratory failure, pulmonary sepsis, acute malnutrition, and anemia.
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Even so, that same year, former Health Minister Édgar Lama denied that there had been any deaths from tuberculosis.
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On May 24, the Committee of Families for a Dignified Life in Prisons denounced the transfer of more than 30 prisoners with tuberculosis from El Encuentro to the regional prison in Guayaquil, despite the government denying a possible outbreak. A list reviewed by this team confirms 31 transfers. Reports of possible torture and sexual violence have also continued to emerge.
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If prisoners were able to eat during the months when the service was suspended, it was largely thanks to the efforts of inmates’ families, organizations, and the Catholic Church. In Esmeraldas prison — the epicenter of a prison massacre in September 2025 — female relatives formed a committee and, together with the prison chaplain, collected food every day, especially eggs, to bring to the prison.
Other families did the same in prisons in the Ecuadorian highlands, such as the Latacunga mega-prison, where prisoners cooked for themselves. But much of the food did not arrive. “When we first visited them, they were skin and bones. My son is tall, but I saw him shrunken. Not just him — all the young men. They had their hands behind their backs, and the soldiers stood behind us to watch what they were saying,” said one mother in Esmeraldas.
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The family of Josué David Mendoza, 25, was unable to recover his body. The young man died without having been sentenced on December 26, 2025. He had been imprisoned for only five months in the Penitentiary, waiting for his trial. His younger brother learned that he had died four months later, on April 24, 2026, from a police officer who helped them find out what had happened to him.
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[About someone else ->] But when she went to claim his body, the autopsy report she was given revealed that her son had been beaten to death. The document — which we reviewed for this investigation — confirms that he suffered trauma to his skull and face.
On February 3, 2024, less than a month after the prisons had been militarized, an inmate appeared before constitutional judge Manuel Peña during a habeas corpus hearing — the first of that year — in which the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights alleged restrictions on medical care and food, as well as alleged physical and psychological torture by uniformed personnel.
During his testimony, the inmate said he was not receiving treatment for the tuberculosis he suffered from. With the arrival of the soldiers, something else was added : abuse.
“They don’t even give me acetaminophen. We have no electricity. There is no water. We sleep in all that stench. I am 48 years old and I have tuberculosis. [The military] have shocked me with electricity because I would not lie face down, because I suffocate. Even when we are sick, they beat us,” he said. Alongside him, five other people appeared, visibly thin and infected with tuberculosis, according to this team, which followed the hearing that year.
Another man said he urinated blood after being assaulted: “They made me spread my legs so they could tie a cable around my testicles. I did everything they told me, but they still threw gas at us. I have lung problems. I was receiving medicine, but the soldiers broke it. I live with twelve people, and most of them have tuberculosis and are already vomiting blood.”
During the proceedings, a lawyer representing Guillermo Pacheco, then director of the Litoral Penitentiary, said that since the military intervention, access to the cell blocks had been restricted by the uniformed forces. That restriction, he said, had caused delays in judicial and medical transfers. He also stated that after the reorganization of the prisoners, carried out by the military and police, there were no official records of where they had been placed. Even so, he claimed that regular medical care was being provided and asked that the petition be rejected.
After evaluating the evidence, Judge Peña declared that the inmates’ rights had been violated. He ordered the prison and the Ministry of Health to guarantee uninterrupted medical care. He also ordered an investigation into possible torture and the provision of basic minimums: drinking water, mattresses, and access to essential goods.
Peña’s ruling earned him a series of systematic attacks on social media. Local commentators and government-aligned accounts exposed his face, inciting a digital lynching.
Time proved him right. In September 2025, Judge Peña and two other colleagues visited the prison and detailed in a report that they had found bodies and flies in the prison’s internal polyclinic. Surviving in Ecuadorian prisons has become a deep trauma, one that drives prisoners to insist that other inmates at risk of death receive treatment.
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Inflicting abuse did not stop or reduce the illicit economies operating inside prisons — one of the major promises of militarization.
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The same thing is happening in Esmeraldas prison, where members of the Los Tiguerones gang are the ones organizing the entry of food, paying soldiers and police officers to prevent more prisoners from dying, according to a prisoner who belongs to that organization.
Among the detainees are former left-wing Vice President Jorge Glas, who lost 30 pounds and was found unconscious after allegedly being denied food and medical care.
Noboa forbid Rafael Correa to present himself, among many more "democratic" things.
Of course, he cut off the social programs while lowering taxes in order to be more competitive, classic.
