A little after 2pm on Tuesday, Jorge Rendón and a colleague were reading the news live on Ecuador’s TC Televisión network when they learned that the scuffle they could hear in the corridor outside the studio wasn’t a scuffle.
“We get the producer in our earpieces and he says: ‘Please be careful. They’re forcing their way in. They’re robbing us. They’re attacking us.’” Seconds later, Rendón, a broadcast journalist based in Ecuador’s biggest city, Guayaquil, heard the assailants breaking through the studio’s thick, reinforced doors.
The 13 masked attackers, however, hadn’t come to rob the station. As the subsequent screams and gunshots made clear, their aim was to deliver a message that could not be ignored.
“We are on air so that you know you don’t mess with the mafia,” said one of the men, who were armed with pistols, shotguns, sticks of dynamite and other explosives.
Fifteen minutes of live footage showed staff being herded into the studio and forced to lie on the ground as criminal gangs across the country launched a series of seemingly coordinated attacks. It came a day after the president, Daniel Noboa, declared a state of emergency to tackle spiralling criminal violence in the small South American nation.
“They shot one cameraman in the leg and broke another’s arm,” Rendón later told his own TV channel.
The attackers then threatened the captives with guns and explosives and placed a stick of dynamite in the breast pocket of one of Rendón’s colleagues, the journalist José Luis Calderón.
“They put a gun to my head,” Alina Manrique, the head of news for TC Televisión, told the Associated Press. “I was really suffering and panicking. I thought about my whole life and about my two children.”
As the workers pleaded for their lives and horrified viewers followed the siege from their homes, specialist police units were beginning to arrive at the scene to seal off the building and prepare their entry.
“The criminals – there were six of them on the scene – said [the police] needed to go or they’d kill us,” said Manrique. “I was just crying with panic.”
Within minutes, however, the signal had been cut and heavily armed tactical officers had entered the studio, their presence far outnumbering that of the attackers.
“Eventually, the criminals realised they were outnumbered and surrendered their weapons,” said Manrique. “I hugged a policeman, who gave me his hand and I got up off the floor.”
No one was killed in the attack. César Zapata, the commander of Ecuador’s Policía Nacional, said later that 13 people had been arrested and weapons, explosives and other pieces of evidence seized.
“The hostages were freed and the workers attended to,” he said. “The suspects will be brought before justice to face trial for terrorist acts.”
His comments, posted in a tweet on X, were accompanied by a video stamped with the word CAPTURADOS (captured) that showed the blurred faces of the attackers, the weapons confiscated and the bound suspects being led from the scene.
El operativo policial en @tctelevision dejó 13 aprehendidos, armas, explosivos y otros indicios.
— GraD. César Augusto Zapata Correa (@CmdtPoliciaEc) January 9, 2024
Se liberaron a los rehenes y se puso a buen recaudo a los trabajadores.
Los causantes serán puestos ante la justicia para que sean sancionados por los actos terroristas. pic.twitter.com/9KEXWvDfzZ
Zapata said his force “will not allow violent attacks on peace and order”.
If found guilty, those responsible for the attack could face jail sentences of up to 13 years.
The office of the president, who later declared a state of “internal armed conflict” after the series of attacks, also tweeted video of the capture, thanking the police for their “bravery and resolve”, adding: “We act and we win.”
The tone of those caught up in the attack, however, was less certain.
Manrique may have been speaking for many of her compatriots when she told the Associated Press: “Everything has collapsed … All I know is that it’s time to leave this country and go very far away.”
Rendón and Calderón – who later found themselves in the bizarre situation of standing in the TV station’s car park with their colleague Stalin Baquerizo and reporting their ordeal to their own cameras – pleaded for an end to the violence that they, and so many other Ecuadorians, have had to endure over recent years.
“We don’t want this to happen again in Ecuador,” said Rendón. “This is the moment to come together far more than we have before. Because believe me, we need peace as Ecuadorians. We need peace to get beyond all this.”
An equally composed Calderón, still wearing the jacket in whose pocket a stick of dynamite had earlier been deposited, issued a similar plea.
“This was a totally unprecedented act – and one that leads to a reflection,” he said.
“As human beings, we’re grateful for the support but we’re grateful above all to God because we’re here to share this experience, which really serves to show how much we need a path that leads to the welfare of each and every one of us.
“To all of you who have been following this – our families, our friends, our colleagues and people elsewhere in the world – here we are. We’re more alive than ever and more united in our wish for things in our country, and in Latin America, to get better. Because we just can’t live like this.”
Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
