ECUADOREAN MAYOR SURVIVES ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

August 19, 2023

Read Time:59 Second

A day before the nation’s general elections, the mayor of a city in Ecuador said on Saturday that he had been the target of an attempted assassination.

La Libertad’s mayor, Francisco Tamariz, claimed he survived the attack on Friday evening, during which assailants fired 30 rounds at his car.

“They tried to kill me,” Tamariz said on X, formerly known as Twitter, adding that more than eight people had witnessed the shooting.

After a campaign characterized by the assassination of a leading candidate, Ecuador will hold a presidential election on Sunday and promise to combat the lawlessness that has overtaken the nation.

The tiny South American nation has recently developed into a haven for foreign drug cartels looking to export cocaine from its borders, sparking a bloody gang war there.

The deaths of several politicians in the run-up to the election highlighted the difficulties facing Ecuador’s leaders. The murder rate has risen above that of Mexico and Colombia.

The most well-known of them was Fernando Villavicencio, a presidential contender and outspoken opponent of corruption, who was shot and killed in broad daylight as he left a political event just days before the election.