Ecuador degenerates into full scale civil war with TV station seized, university attacked and jail guards executed

The glamorous lives of a country’s president and his stunning social media influencer wife are in conflict with the “state of war” in their country.

Thirteen arrested gunmen that stormed Ecuador's state-owned TC television channel are presented to the press at the Modelo Police Department. Picture: AFP

They are a picture perfect family.

But the glamorous lives of a country’s president and his stunning social media influencer wife are in conflict with the “state of war” their country has descended into.

On social media, President Daniel Noboa, 36, and his wife Lavinia Valbonesi, 25, appear flawless.

In family trips to the beach, they pose in swimwear with their young son. In other photos the family hangs Christmas tree ornaments.

Ms Valbonesi’s Instagram following — of which she has almost 600,000 fans — tells only one side of the story.

Because just months after her husband swept to power in November last year, the tiny South American nation of Ecuador has descended into a full blown civil war with armed forces engaged in a brutal standoff with organised crime gangs.

Since Monday, drug cartels have been waging a bloody campaign of kidnappings and attacks in response to the Ecuadorian government’s crackdown on organised crime, prompting Mr Noboa to declare the country in a “state of war”.

Mr Noboa has vowed not to yield in the “war” with 22 criminal gangs.

“They wanted to instil fear, but they aroused our ire,” Defense Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo declared on social media.

Soldiers frisk a man at a market in the neighbourhood of Moran in north Quito this week. Picture: AFP

Dr Lucas Lixinski from the University of NSW school of global and public law told news.com.au that Ecuador’s border with Columbia was particularly problematic ensuring drug trafficking has becoming a “preoccupation” for the current government.

“The president has built himself on an anti-crime platform so this has been particularly pressing,” he said.

Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa. Picture: AFP

Who is President Daniel Noboa?

Ecuador’s president Daniel Noboa, at age 36, is the country’s second youngest president in the country’s history.

The son of a banana baron he swept to power in November last year.

Mr Noboa’s personal life has never been far from the headlines, married to Lavinia Valbonesi whom he shares one son with another child on the way.

He met the nutritionist and glamarous social media influencer in 2019, according to The Sun, when he hired her as his personal nutritionist.

Mr Noboa was attempting to lose weight while he was married to his ex-wife Gabriela Goldbaum, who he shares a daughter with.

On social media Daniel Noboa and his wife Lavinia Valbonesi appear flawless. Picture: Instagram

Ms Valbonesi stole the heart of the mega-wealthy businessman and the pair tied the knot on August 28, 2021.

Taking to Instagram on their wedding anniversary, she wrote: “We are a EVERYTHING and a WE.

We’re our favourite combo, our perfect company. We are best friends, we are best life partners.”

But it is Mr Noboa’s commitment to eradicating drug gangs and reducing violence in the country that has made global headlines.

He has made a war on drugs gangs a central plank of his right wing presidency.

Two days into his term, he demanded the Ministry of the Interior to repeal the Drug Consumption Table, which he believed encouraged “micro-trafficking”.

Daniel Noboa and his wife Lavinia Valbonesi. Picture: Instagram

The glamorous couple are expecting their second child due in February. Picture: Instagram

He simultaneously began creating programs to reduce the consumption of narcotics and provide treatment for drug abusers.

Prison break behind latest violence

The latest outburst of violence was sparked by the discovery on Sunday of the prison escape of one of the country’s most powerful drug bosses, Jose Adolfo Macias, known by the alias “Fito.”

On Monday, Mr Noboa imposed a state of emergency and night-time curfew, but the gangs hit back with a declaration of “war” — threatening to execute civilians and security forces and instigating numerous prison riots, setting off explosions and torching cars in public places.

Thirteen arrested gunmen that stormed Ecuador's state-owned TC television channel are presented to the press at the Modelo Police Department. Picture: AFP

By Thursday, gang members were holding 178 guards hostage at several prisons, with ongoing riots and inmates shooting at members of the armed forces.

Police said the death toll rose to 16 late Wednesday with a “terrorist” attack on a disco in the Amazon that claimed two lives and injured nine people.

Seven police personnel have been kidnapped in recent days, though only one remains in captivity.

On Tuesday, attackers wearing balaclavas stormed a state-owned TV station in the port city of Guayaquil, briefly taking staff members hostage and firing shots in dramatic scenes broadcast live before police arrived.

An Ecuadorean soldier stands guard at Carondelet Palace in Quito on January 10, 2024. Picture: AFP

Thirteen assailants were arrested, many of them young teenagers.

Many shops and businesses in Ecuador’s main cities remain shuttered, though some reopened tentatively.

“We are afraid, afraid that when least expected, they (the gangsters) will do the same thing again,” Ines Macas, a 69-year-old homemaker in Quito, told AFP.

Criminal gangs in the country of about 17 million people are thought to have more than 20,000 members.

Last year was the worst yet, with 7800 murders and a record 220 tons of drugs seized.

Much of the violence has been concentrated in prisons, where spectacularly brutal clashes between inmates have left more than 460 dead, many beheaded or burned alive since February 2021.

-with The Sun