Shocking Find By The Beach Side

The only sane way to describe the above picture is: a shocking find by the beach side.

It involves no fewer than five human heads and these were found hanging from ropes at a beach side.

The sight of incident, is in Puerto Lopez, Ecuador, while the country continues to face escalating violence linked to drug trafficking.

The heads were discovered at a beach in the southwest fishing town, with police attributing the killings to conflict between criminal groups operating in the area, Sky News report shows.

The ropes were fixed to wooden poles on the beach.

According to news medium, images published by Ecuadorian media outlets showed a warning sign next to the heads directed at alleged extortionists of fishermen in the small port town.

Drug-trafficking networks with links to transnational cartels are active in the area and have used fishermen and their small boats for their illicit activities, according to authorities.

Fighting over territory and control of drug-trafficking routes has triggered violent episodes across the Manabi province, where Puerto Lopez is located.

Police said that they had carried out control and surveillance operations in Puerto Lopez amid an ongoing state of emergency enforced in nine of the country’s 24 provinces, including Manabi.

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The state of emergency was imposed with the aim of containing the spiral of violence, especially in coastal areas, and restricts certain civil rights.

Police controls in Puerto Lopez increased after a massacre left six people dead two weeks ago. A second armed attack three days later left the same number of dead in Manta, also in the province of Manabi. Those controls failed to prevent this latest incident.

Last year was Ecuador’s most violent year on record, with more than 9,000 murders according to official figures, surpassing the previous 2023 record of 8,248 killings.

The United Kingdom (UK)’s foreign office advised against all but essential travel in Ecuador’s Manabi and six other coastal regions.

They also advised against all but essential travel to most areas within 12.4 miles (20km) of the Ecuador-Colombia border.

In October, the Ecuadorian government claimed there had been an assassination attempt against the president when a group of 500 people attacked his convoy.

It was indeed a shocking find by the beach side.