Cartel violence reaches Ecuador’s ‘last refuge’: the classroom

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Schools were once the last safe haven in Ecuador, one of the most violent countries in the world, but now the drug trade has brought fear even into the classroom.

José Albán first felt that terror just a few kilometres from the public school where he has worked for more than a decade, in a rural area of Manabí, a province in the north of the country now under cartel control. It was Feb. 8, 2024. He had just finished work and was heading home with his partner, fellow teacher Tania Carriel, when they were stopped by armed men.

It was the first time Ecuador had heard of teachers being kidnapped.

For 18 hours, the couple endured beatings, humiliation and torture. Their captors told them their release depended on a payment of US$20,000 – a staggering sum considering that an Ecuadorean teacher’s starting salary is just US$875.

With the police overwhelmed, victims know their survival depends on raising the money. The couple drained their savings and reached a relative under their captors’ watch. Their school launched a public collection. In the end, they raised US$5,000, and the kidnappers – who amused themselves at one point by holding a running chainsaw close to the teachers’ arms – let them go.

It is unlikely their attackers will ever be identified. Ecuador’s prosecutor’s office solves just 7 per cent of the crimes it investigates. But the couple suspects it was planned and carried out by students from their own school.

They returned to work days after their release, to the same classrooms where they fear their attackers still sit.

“I try to carry on, but I’ve lost hope,” Mr. Albán said by phone. “I’m speaking to you today after burying one of my students. He was found murdered, lying in the street. I always believed classrooms were the last refuge for these kids. Not any more. Not any more.”

What happened to the couple is not an isolated case. The National Union of Educators (UNE), the country’s largest teachers’ union, has asked authorities to declare the education sector in a state of emergency. According to the UNE, at least 520 teachers were victims of kidnappings, threats and extortion between January, 2024, and May, 2025.

Not all of them feel emotionally able to return to classrooms where they have been threatened. Lucas Muñoz, who became a teacher at 25, quit eight months ago after seven years in the profession.

Teaching had been his lifelong dream. So when he was offered a post at Víctor Hugo Mora, a high school in Guayaquil – Ecuador’s second largest and one of its most violent cities – he didn’t hesitate.

“Back then, even if the area was dangerous, teachers were protected,” Mr. Muñoz said. “But that was before drugs and the GDOs.” (GDO is police shorthand for Grupos de Delincuencia Organizada – local cartels, dangerous and violent, against which the Ecuadorean state has been formally at war since January, 2024.)

A phone call, a WhatsApp message, then threatening leaflets: That’s how the demands arrived. Los Tiguerones, the cartel controlling the area, told teachers they must each pay a one-time fee of US$3,000 to keep the school running in peace.

Mr. Muñoz crunched the numbers and realized it wasn’t worth it. So he resigned from his job – and his career – and decided to work as a freelance graphic designer instead.

“Maybe if I were young and alone, I’d have stayed. But I have two daughters, a family. A lot of debt. I couldn’t raise the payment. And you know what can happen if you don’t pay,” he said.

What can happen is death. On June 3, 2025, authorities reported that a teacher had been attacked by two armed men in Esmeraldas, near the Colombian border. The woman, whose identity police withheld for security reasons, survived the gunfire in what they called a near miracle. The attack exposed the widespread reality of extortion: She had refused to pay the US$150 demanded by the local cartel.

Unlike Mr. Muñoz, some teachers simply cannot leave. Ericka Espinosa is one of them. She works at Central Técnico High School in Quito, where authorities have identified students from two rival GDOs. This forces teachers to plan their classes so they never mix these groups, for fear it could trigger a violent clash – or worse.

“The situation is out of control. We’ve found kids with guns, many teachers receive threats, and the students have turned to micro-trafficking inside the school,” Ms. Espinosa said from Quito. The city’s violence levels fall short of the extreme figures seen on the coast, but dangerous scenarios still occur.

“Last year, a colleague who tried to break up a gang fight had his hand cut off,” Ms. Espinosa said. ”I don’t know what more needs to happen for education to be declared in a state of emergency.”

The government does not appear to be close to declaring such an emergency. Education Minister Alegría Crespo, citing figures that differ from her critics, admits there are challenges but says “we are not facing collapse or a generalized crisis. In fact, 99.89 per cent of teachers and 99.91 per cent of students have not been victims of violence. What we have are targeted cases, mostly in specific areas, and we are acting forcefully there.”

The ministry says it knows violence is everywhere, and admits that, in reported extortion cases, it has approved 108 teacher relocations to keep staff out of dangerous classrooms.

But as Ecuador’s murder rate increases, that policy may not be sustainable. In the first quarter alone, Ecuador recorded 4,619 homicides – 47 per cent more than last year – and experts warn 2025 could be the deadliest year in the country’s history. On the map where once there were localized “red zones,” violence now appears to have spread across the entire nation.