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Vice President Vicuña presides meeting in border area with Colombia
Posted On 23 Mar 2018
Ecuadornews:
The Vice President of Ecuador, María Vicuña, presides today a meeting of authorities in the areas of security and social affairs in the province of Esmeraldas, on the border with Colombia, where on Tuesday three soldiers died and seven were injured in an attack with an explosive attributed to criminal gangs.
This was reported by the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister, María Fernanda Espinosa, in statements to the press and stated that the vice minister of Human Mobility, José Jácome, is attending the meeting.
The deputy minister said on Twitter that the meeting will address “strategies that strengthen the articulation of the various government institutions to improve the care and safety of our population.”
The chancellor, also head of Human Mobility, said that the meeting will analyze the needs of attention and protection of the border population among which count many Colombians.
Regarding foreign citizens, said that Ecuador has “the obligation and commitment to ensure stability, tranquility and the normal development of their daily lives.”
The head of Ecuadorian diplomacy recalled that next Saturday will meet the Binational Border Commission (Combifron), a group that brings together officials from Ecuador and Colombia, to analyze the situation, but did not specify the place of the appointment.
The Ecuadorian Minister of Defense, Patricio Zambrano, mentioned on Wednesday that it could take place in Tulcán (Ecuador) or in Ipiales (Colombia).
Espinosa said that “very soon” there will be a meeting of the mechanism known as 3 + 2, led by ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defense and the Interior of both countries.
He recalled that in a telephone conversation on Tuesday, the presidents of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, and Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, reiterated their commitment to fight “in a firm and joint way organized crime and all forms of aggression and violence that threatens the peace, welfare and rights “of bordering populations.
With the appointment today in Esmeraldas -in which the State Attorney General, Carlos Baca also participates-, the Ministry of the Interior indicated that it will evaluate the progress of the state response to the state of emergency decreed in January after the car bomb attack in San Lorenzo, in that province of the Ecuadorian northwest.
The explosion, whose objective was the main police station in the area, left 28 minor injuries and material damage and was described by the Executive as a “terrorist act” linked to “drug trafficking gangs”.
On the other hand, the Ecuadorian Minister of the Interior, César Navas, who is in the zone of the last attacks, recalled that the number of military and police forces in the northern border has increased to fight the armed organizations.
Ramiro Mantilla, commander of the National Police and who has been in San Lorenzo since yesterday, supervises the reconstruction works of the police precinct affected by the attack, as well as the degree of preparation of his agents before possible attacks. (I)
