A 16-year-old soccer player from the youth academy of Independiente del Valle was fatally shot when he was struck by a stray bullet at home in the port city of Guayaquil, police in Ecuador said Wednesday.
Miguel Nazareno was at home “when he unfortunately became a victim of the insecurity affecting our country,” the soccer team said in an Instagram post, citing a wave of criminal violence began in Ecuador almost five years ago.
“We extend our most sincere condolences and all our support to his family, friends, and teammates during this difficult time,” the team’s post added.
Nazareno, who played as a midfielder and forward, was the victim of a stray bullet, according to police.
Nazareno became at least the fourth soccer player killed by gunfire in Ecuador this year.
In September, Maicol Valencia and Leandro Yépez, both from Exapromo Costa, and Jonathan González, from 22 de Junio, were killed. Both Exapromo Costa and 22 de Junio are second-division squads.
Last month, Ecuadoran soccer player Bryan “Cuco” Angulo was shot in the foot when attending a training session.
Nazareno played for Independiente del Valle’s Under-18 team. Several Ecuadorian national team players who play for European clubs, such as Moisés Caicedo (Chelsea) and Piero Hincapié (Bayer Leverkusen), came up through the ranks at Independiente del Valle.
Playing soccer in Ecuador can be deadly, with match-fixing mafias part of a global criminal empire that earns gangs some $1.7 trillion per year, according to a recent United Nations estimate.
Surging violence in Ecuador
Since 2021, Ecuador has experienced growing criminal violence by gangs operating in coordination with Colombian and Mexican cartels involved in drug trafficking.
Strategically located between Colombia and Peru, two of the world’s largest cocaine producers, it has become a major transit hub for narcotics.
President Daniel Noboa has deployed troops to combat the violence — to little effect.
In the first half of this year, homicides in Ecuador increased by 47% compared to the same period in 2024, according to the national Observatory of Organized Crime.
Just last week, an Ecuadoran judge was killed while walking his children to school. Provincial police chief Colonel Giovanni Naranjo told reporters the Los Lobos gang — designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States — was suspected of the attack.
Also in October, authorities in Ecuador reported two attacks that left 14 people dead and 17 wounded, with some of the victims showing signs of torture.
Criminal gang violence continues unabated following the recapture in June of the country’s biggest drug lord, Adolfo MacÃas after his escape from a maximum-security prison in 2024. In July, the Ecuadoran government extradited Macias to the United States, where he faces multiple drug trafficking and firearms charges.
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