A government official in Ecuador has accused protesters of attempting to attack President Daniel Noboa, alleging that a group of approximately 500 people surrounded his vehicle and threw rocks.
The attack, which unfolded in the south-central province of Canar, took place as Noboa arrived in the canton of El Tambo for an event about water treatment and sewage.
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Environment and Energy Minister Ines Manzano said Noboa’s car showed “signs of bullet damage”. In a statement to the press, she explained that she filed a report alleging an assassination attempt had taken place.
“Shooting at the president’s car, throwing stones, damaging state property — that’s just criminal,” Manzano said. “We will not allow this.”
The president’s office also issued a statement after the attack on Tuesday, pledging to pursue accountability against those involved.
“Obeying orders to radicalise, they attacked a presidential motorcade carrying civilians. They attempted to forcibly prevent the delivery of a project intended to improve the lives of a community,” the statement, published on social media, said.
“All those arrested will be prosecuted for terrorism and attempted murder,” it added.
Five people, according to Manzano, have been detained following the incident. Noboa was not injured.
Video published by the president’s office online shows Noboa’s motorcade navigating a roadway lined with protesters, some of whom picked up rocks and threw them at the vehicles, causing fractures to form on the glass.
A separate image showed a silver SUV with a shattered passenger window and a shattered windscreen. It is not clear from the images whether a bullet had been fired.
Noboa, Ecuador’s youngest-ever president, was re-elected in April after a heated run-off election against left-wing rival Luisa Gonzalez.
May marked the start of his first full term in office. Previously, Noboa, a conservative candidate who had only served a single term in the National Assembly, had been elected to serve the remainder of Guillermo Lasso’s term — a period of around 18 months — after the former president dissolved his government.
Combatting crime has been a centrepiece of Noboa’s pitch for the presidency. Ecuador, formerly considered an “island of peace” in South America, has seen a spike in homicide rates as criminal organisations seek to expand their drug trafficking routes through the country.
Ecuador’s economy has also struggled to recover following the COVID-19 pandemic.
But Noboa has faced multiple protests since taking office.
In recent weeks, for example, he has faced outcry over his decision to end a fuel subsidy that critics say helps lower-income families.
Noboa’s government, however, has argued that the subsidy drove up government costs without reaching those who need it. In a presidential statement on September 12, officials accused the subsidy of being “diverted to smuggling, illegal mining and undue benefits”.
The statement also said that the subsidies represented $1.1bn that could instead be used to compensate small farmers and transportation workers directly.
But the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the country’s most powerful Indigenous advocacy organisation, launched a strike in response to the news of the subsidy’s end.
It called upon its supporters to lead protests and block roadways as a way of expressing their outrage.
Nevertheless, on Tuesday, the group denied that there had been an organised attack on Noboa’s motorcade. Instead, CONAIE argued that government violence had been “orchestrated” against the people who had gathered to protest Noboa.
“We denounce that at least five comrades have been arbitrarily detained,” CONAIE posted on X. “Among the attacked are elderly women.”
It noted that Tuesday marked the 16th day of protest. “The people are not the enemy,” it added.
CONAIE had largely backed Noboa’s rival Gonzalez in the April election, though some of its affiliate groups splintered in favour of Noboa.
This is not the first time that Noboa’s government has claimed the president was the target of an assassination attempt.
In April, shortly after the run-off vote, it issued a “maximum alert” claiming that assassins had entered the country from Mexico to destabilise his administration.
At the time, the administration blamed “sore losers” from the election for fomenting the alleged plot.