“My solidarity with the family of comrade Pedro Briones, a new victim of violence in Ecuador,” commented Luisa González, a supporter of former leftist president Rafael Correa (2007-2017).
“Ecuador is living its bloodiest period”, added the candidate, on the social network X (formerly Twitter), criticizing “the total abandonment of an inept Government” and a “state taken over by the mafias”.
According to the Ecuadorian press, quoting a local police source, Briones was shot dead at home in the city of San Mateo by two men who arrived on a motorbike and managed to flee after the shots were fired.
Despite the efforts of family and neighbors, Briones was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital in the province of Esmeraldas, which borders Colombia, due to two gunshot wounds to his neck.
The Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted to the murder of Pedro Briones by stressing that it “rejects these criminal acts against Ecuadorian democracy and trusts that those responsible will be punished to the fullest extent of the law”.
