The president said he will not back down on his decisions against organized crime.

“Last night they wanted to intimidate us by placing a car bomb with dynamite not far from here. They told me: ‘Mr. President, this happened. Are you going tomorrow?’ Of course I will go tomorrow and if you show up you will get shot. We are not here to take a step back,” said the president.

Noboa made his remarks on Wednesday, as he attended an event in Machala, where he signed an agreement to widen La Primavera highway, adding that the highway expansion to four lanes over a 10.25-kilometer stretch is a step to “protect the history, the people and the productivity” of El Oro, a province bordering Peru.

The bomb threat denunciation comes on a day when the president ordered the deployment of 400 officers to confront the rise in violence and combat the gangs operating in the territory. The day before, Noboa had admitted that increased police operations in other areas of the country had pushed criminal groups to El Oro.

This province was recently put under state of emergency, in a move by Noboa to bring an end to the local armed conflict, as part of the exception measures he has been adopting since January 2024.

El Oro has witness violent activities as of late, namely the attempt on the life of a penitentiary’s warden and a massacre that left 10 dead, riddled with bullets.

Ecuador is suffering a security crisis that has turned Ecuador into the most violent country in the region.

According to official figures, violent deaths registered an 18 percent year-on-year drop from January to November, but the number of homicides still exceeds six thousand so far this year

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