The UN team in Ecuador, headed by Resident Coordinator Lena Savelli, offered in a recent meeting with Ecuadorian leaders to upgrade support ahead of the violence wave that keeps prisons in the hands of organized crime gangs and over 170 abductions.

As part of the response, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has been assisting with data collection and monitoring the dynamics of illicit crops, as providing technical assistance for the upcoming National Strategy against Organized Crime.

Meanwhile, UN Women, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and UNODC have been collaborating with the authorities to strengthen institutional capacities, with funding from the UN Peacebuilding Fund, the spokesperson assured at a press conference.

On Friday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk urged that any emergency measures to address violence in Ecuador be “proportionate and limited to what is required by the security situation.”

ef/omr/lam/ebr

.