A prison riot in Ecuador’s coastal city of Guayaquil left at least 11 inmates and policemen injured on Wednesday, prison authority SNAI said in a preliminary report, shortly after this week. a deadly confrontation occurred in another prison in the Andean country.

Violence has plagued Ecuador’s prison system since early last year, resulting in hundreds of prisoners being killed.

Between February 2021 and October 2022, there have been eight clashes in Ecuador’s prisons, which have left 373 prisoners violently dead, according to SNAI data.

The latest deadly riot took place Monday at the prison in the city of Latacunga, in which at least 16 prisoners were killed.

The police remain within the limits of the prison called Penitenciaría, located in Guayaquil, “restoring order,” the SNAI said in a message posted on Twitter (NYSE: TWTR ).

“The official report of institutions in charge indicates that they were injured: 6 people deprived of liberty and 5 police officers,” he added, adding that there was damage to the structure of the prison.

The entity did not report deaths after the incidents.

The police said that the uniformed men had been injured with firearms while intervening to restore order.

The Penitentiary was the scene of one of the worst prison riots in the history of Ecuador, which took place in September 2021 and left 122 prisoners dead.

The government attributes prison violence to infighting between gangs over territory and drug trafficking routes.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has said that Ecuador’s prison system is affected by the abandonment of the State and the absence of a comprehensive policy, as well as by the poor conditions of inmates.

The country’s prisons house some 33,500 people and exceed their maximum capacity by 11.3%, according to official figures.