Several prisoners managed to escape during the unrest. Thirteen of them are reported to have been arrested again.
The previously relatively safe Ecuador has in recent years been hit by a violent wave with links to organized crime. The country, which is located between Colombia and Peru where a large part of the world's cocaine is produced, has been exploited by the drug cartels as a new transit country for exports to Europe and North America.
Hundreds of prisoners have been killed in the brutal gang wars that have followed in the wake of development.
