Argentina is ready to send the security forces personnel to Ecuador to help the authorities amid the worsening criminal environment in the country, Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich said on Wednesday.
"We are ready to help them, to send the security forces personnel, if it is necessary," Bullrich told Argentine news broadcaster TN.
She said that the situation in Ecuador is a problem for the whole South America continent, adding that the events in other countries of the region impact Argentina.
Ecuadorian newspaper Primicias reported on Wednesday that 29 buildings were exposed to the criminal attacks the day before, including five hospitals where the attackers attempted to take hostages.
Due to the crisis in the country a number of the companies and buildings in the center of Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city, closed on Tuesday earlier than usual, while the state institutions and media organizations called their employees for evacuation, the newspaper added.
On Monday, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa declared a 60-day state of emergency in Ecuador following prison riots and the escape of a major gang leader, Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, also known as Fito, from a jail in Guayaquil. A day later, Noboa said that the country was in a state of "internal armed conflict" amid the hostage-taking riots in various cities and prisons and designated several organized crime groups as "terrorist organizations." Noboa ordered the army to "neutralize" several criminal groups operating in the country.