Deborah Akinyosoye
A judge was shot dead on Thursday in Ecuador while walking his children to school in a coastal province plagued by drug cartels, police said.
A gunman travelling by motorbike opened fire on Marcos Mendoza as he was accompanying his children in the town of Montecristi, the provincial police chief Colonel Giovanni Naranjo told reporters.
At least 15 judges or prosecutors have been killed in Ecuador since 2022, according to Human Rights Watch.
Macias was captured in June in the port of Manta and extradited to the United States on drugs and weapons charges.
The Ecuadoran Judges’ Association said Mendoza’s “shocking” murder shone a light on the “vulnerability” of the country’s judges.
They “face pressure, threats, and risks every day for carrying out their duties with independence and courage,” it added.
Ecuador, once considered one of Latin America’s safest nations, has seen a dramatic surge in violence in recent years.
Strategically located between Colombia and Peru, two of the world’s largest cocaine producers, it has become a major transit hub for narcotics.
President Daniel Noboa has deployed troops to combat the violence, to little effect.
The number of murders recorded nationwide increased 47 per cent in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2024, according to the Ecuadorian Observatory of Organized Crime.