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Handout picture released by the Ecuadorean Armed Forces taken during a joint operation by the Police and the Military at the Zonal Penitentiary No 8 in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on August 12, 2023. A 4.000-stong joint force carried out a security operation in the prison in the framework of the state of emergency declared in the country on August 10, following the assassination of popular presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. Ecuador, located between major cocaine producers Colombia and Peru and with laxer controls, has made it a new nerve centre for the global drug trade. Hundreds have been killed – some dismembered or burned to death – in a gang war that largely plays out in the country's prisons, mainly in Guayaquil, in the battle for control of drug routes. (Photo by Ecuadorean Armed Forces/AFP Photo)
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