Violent crime has become so widespread in Ecuador that most of its citizens report feeling scared to walk the streets alone at night, according to a new poll.
The country was forced to declare a State of Emergency in January due to rising homicides linked to drug crime.
The nation’s President, Daniel Noboa, put the nation on high alert after notorious drug lord José Adolfo Macías, also known as Fito, escaped from a maximum-security prison.
Thousands of soldiers were deployed onto the streets as chaos unfolded, culminating in gunmen storming a live TV set as the news was being read.
In the poll by Gallup, no other place anywhere in the world – aside from active war zones – felt less secure than Guayas on Ecuador’s Pacific Coast.
According to the data, just 11 percent percent of residents felt safe walking alone in their area at night. Guayas is the most populous region, but the grim stats hinted at a tale that was reflected in the national figure too.
Nationally, just 27 percent of Ecuadorians feel safe alone on the streets around their homes at night. It is comfortably the worst in the poll data of citizens about the safest and least safest feeling countries.
Countries where residents feel the least safe at night
(Percentage indicates the number of residents surveyed)
Ecuador – 27%
The bombshell report found that, among Latin Americans, Ecuadorians felt the least safe in 2023.
The small Andean nation was a relatively peaceful country until the COVID-19 crisis when a security crisis emerged.
It is located between the world’s two largest cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru, making it an increasingly important point in the global cocaine trafficking system.
As a result, gang violence and homicides have skyrocketed to nearly 50 per 100,000 residents in 2023, which is among the highest in the world.
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South Africa – 30%
Violent crime has soared in the country over the past few years.
In 2022-23, it saw a record amount of kidnapping, which skyrocketed 41.7 percent, in addition to attempted murders rising by 13.7 percent, and carjacking rising by 8.5 percent compared to the previous year, according to annual statistics.
Murder is currently at a 20-year high as some is killed roughly every 20 minutes, according to police crime statistics from earlier this year.
Cash-in-transit, CIT, heists have hovered around the same level as in previous years, totaling to 238 incidents recorded.
Additionally, the country has been subject to record electricity blackouts and sustained water outages that have crushed businesses and wreaked havoc on hospitals and schools.
Street potholes, burst pipes and traffic light outages are also a daily occurrence.
South Africa came to a critical juncture this spring upon holding a critical election that saw the African National Congress (ANC) significantly decline in power and lose its majority for the first time since Nelson Mandela led it to power 30 years ago.
Liberia – 30%
According to the Global Organized Crime Index, loosely organized human and drug trafficking, trade smuggling and cyber-crime are on the rise in the low-income country, which fought two civil wars in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Many victims of human trafficking within its borders are subject to forced labor and sex trafficking, including domestic servitude.
The country’s deteriorating economy, characterized by high unemployment and poverty rates, has also exacerbated crimes such as armed robbery, rape and murder.
Botswana – 32%
According to the Global Organized Crime Index, human trafficking including forced labor of children and sexual slavery of women has been able to quietly continue due to widespread corruption among state officials.
The country serves as a transit point for trade smuggling, including for the counterfeit clothing, shoes, electronics and medical products sent to South Africa.
After being banned during the COVID-19 pandemic, illicit trade of cigarettes and alcohol soared.
There is also a black market for its resources, including drugs such as heroin and marijuana, wood, animal poaching, diamonds, gold, sand and fuel.
The country’s unsecured borders have also led to a rise in armed robberies and gun violence, including armed heists.
Chile – 36%
According to the Global Organized Crime Index, the South American country experiences high rates of human and drug trafficking as well as crime related to illicit trade of various natural resources and counterfeit goods.
Human trafficking victims are frequently subject to sexual slavery and forced labor.
The rising crime rates comes over 50 years after a military overthrew its democratically-elected President Salvador Allende, a democratic socialist, in 1973.
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