Ecuador deports more than 800 Colombian prisoners amid increased tension between the two countries

Detainees queue before being deported from Ecuador to Colombia on July 26, 2025. Leonardo Castro / AFP more than 800 Colombian prisoners were deported from Ecuador to his country through the border passage in Carchi’s Ecuadorian province, local authority reported on Saturday. A source from the Carchi government (Ecuador), which asked not to be identified, said AFP that on Friday (25) began the deportation of about 870 Colombian prisoners, who represent almost 60% of the people of this nationality who were in Ecuadorian arrests. Also on Friday, the Colombian Foreign Ministry issued a grade of diplomatic protest to Quito (Ecuador) for considering the deportation would be done in a “unilateral manner” and “violating” international law. “More than eight hundred PPLs (private people of liberty) have been deported,” Carchi governor (Ecuador), Diana Pozo, told the press at the Rumichaca border bridge, on the outskirts of Tulcán (Carchi capital). Under the surveillance of dozens of Ecuador police and military, prisoners with orange uniforms had to line up to cross for their country, found AFP. At dawn, some detainees who wore shorts and t -shirts did physical exercise to combat the Andean cold. “We want to pass, we want to pass,” they shouted as they waited for the Colombian authorities to receive them. “We have done an interinstitutional work with the migration of Colombia and Ecuador so that this deportation process is agile and there is no collapse on the bridge,” added governor Pozo. However, Colombian authorities guarantee that they have not been notified. “The problem we had is that, because we were not informed, we did not have a contingency plan” to receive them, said the secretary of government of the Colombian municipality of Ipiales, Juan Morales. “We had to elaborate it at the last minute to be able to support and offer humanitarian assistance,” he added. See more: Concorda disaster: as a 43 cm piece knocked over supersonic plane

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