Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, currently on leave from office to campaign for the upcoming referendum and popular consultation set for November 16, announced plans to build a new medium-security prison for 15,000 inmates in Santa Elena.
In an interview on Wednesday morning, Noboa said the new facility will be located near the partially completed “Cárcel del Encuentro,” also in Santa Elena. “It will be built nearby, not as a maximum-security prison but as a medium-security one for approximately 15,000 people,” the president said. “Right now, we have 7,000 inmates living in overcrowded conditions. The problem isn’t only overcrowding — many prisons were never repaired.”
Noboa noted that construction of the Cárcel del Encuentro is only 35% to 40% complete but should reach about 80% in the coming weeks. Around 300 prisoners have recently been transferred there, a move the president described as urgent.
“It was necessary,” Noboa said. “They want to kill as many people as possible to claim this government has failed, so we had to move ahead with the transfers.”