Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has granted preemptive pardons for police and military personnel responding to an armed attack that killed at least 22 in the southern city of Guayaquil yesterday.

Rival factions of an Ecuadoran drug trafficking gang fought Thursday in the violent port city of Guayaquil, leaving at least 22 people dead, officials said. Another three people were wounded in a series of clashes in the city, the local police said in a statement as it increased an earlier toll of 12 dead.

Gangs, drugs and public safety threats are ravaging Ecuador’s largest city and may push the president to seek help from the United States.

Relatives of those killed in an attack on Thursday in the Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil waited outside a morgue to retrieve their bodies.

Detainees are shown to the press after police detained them in Guayaquil, Ecuador, Friday, March 7, 2025, for alleged involvement with the previous day's massacre in the Socio Vivienda 2

Ecuador's president announced on Friday an amnesty for security forces fighting drug cartels in the port city of Guayaquil, where 22 people were killed in fierce gunfights between rival gangs.