Violence

The Ecuadorean capital Quito, currently bracing itself for a potential geothermal eruption from the nearby Cotopaxi volcano, has only just started recovering a social eruption on an even bigger scale. Growing discontent among various groups came to a head last Thursday when a ‘national strike’, led by indigenous organizations, descended into violent clashes with security forces, lasting late into Saturday.

In an offensive started at the beginning of the year — the latest front in a decades-long struggle to control crime — the police have pushed deep into the slums where gangs hold sway and three units of elite troops stand by to join the battle on the streets for the first time.

The rape of a 12-year-old girl and the apparent indiscriminate killings of a 16-year-old boy and his father by UN peacekeeping forces in the Central African Republic must be urgently investigated.

In 2014, almost 300,000 people abandoned their homes to escape threats or violence and sought refuge in another part of the country. No one knows how many have left the country, but in the first half of 2015 almost 24,000 adults and children were deported back to El Salvador after being caught trying to reach the US.