Guayaquil is a city on edge in a country that is struggling to confront the power of its drugs gangs, and now the spotlight is on the government’s response.

President Daniel Noboa declared a state of “internal armed conflict” as a result of the violence. The president named 22 criminal groups as “terrorist organizations” and ordered the country’s armed forces and police to mobilize and “neutralize” them.

Thousands of soldiers and police officers have been deployed. Tanks and heavily armed security forces are patrolling the streets and setting up checkpoints.

Ecuador’s leaders have declared states of emergency before as the country’s gangs have increased in size and influence, expanding their drug trafficking networks into new illicit economies, taking control of the country’s prisons and corrupting agencies and institutions of the state. But Mr Noboa’s declaration of an armed conflict with gangs is the first in the country’s history.

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