Photo Story – Ecuador will accelerate pardons and repatriations due to prison overcrowding

Relatives of inmates wait outside the morgue to receive the bodies of their loved ones, killed during a riot in prison on 28 September in Guayaquil, Ecuador, 01 October 2021. The Ecuadorian Government announced on 01 October its intention to grant some 2,000 pardons and repatriate foreign prisoners to their respective countries as two of the measures adopted to try to reduce overcrowding in the country’s prisons, after the massacre in Guayaquil. The press conference comes amid severe criticism of the Government for the situation in the country’s prisons, with overcrowding levels of 62 percent in the Litoral prison in Guayaquil, where 118 inmate lost their lives.