Power was restored on Wednesday afternoon, after the outage caused confusion on the streets of Quito as traffic lights ceased working

Power was nearly fully restored in Ecuador, hours after a nationwide electricity outage left the country of about 18 million in the dark, including the capital’s subway system.

Public works minister Roberto Luque said in a post on X that 95% of service had been restored by late Wednesday afternoon.

Sweeping security measures designed to empower police and armed forces against organised crime

Ecuadoreans will vote on Sunday in a referendum on a raft of unprecedented security measures designed to empower the police and armed forces in the fight against spiralling violence and organised crime.

Voters must accept or reject 11 questions, mostly about security, in the plebiscite, which is being seen as a test of support for Ecuador’s popular young president. Daniel Noboa who took office in November on the pledge to combat the surge in violent crime, put forward the poll to push through proposals to retake control of prisons and tame soaring homicide rates.

Presidency makes announcement nearly a week after wave of violence hit South American country

Scores of hostages have been released from Ecuador’s gang-controlled prisons, the government has claimed, nearly a week after the South American country was shaken by a massive wave of violence.

“All of the hostages have been freed,” the Ecuadorian presidency announced on social media on Saturday night.

Guayaquil eerily quiet as armed forces patrol in wake of stunning wave of arson, bombings and prison riots that killed as many as 15

Ecuador’s largest city has been transformed into a virtual ghost town by a stunning wave of criminal violence that prompted the South American country’s recently elected president to declare his country was in “a state of war”.

On Thursday, the streets of Guayaquil – a normally teeming port city of about 3 million residents – remained eerily quiet after a succession of arson attacks, car bombings, shootings and prison riots in different parts of the country claimed as many as 15 lives.