Havana, 25 March 2024 (dpa/MIA) — The 27-year-old mayor of the town of San Vicente in Ecuador, which has been rocked by gang violence, was shot dead police said on Sunday.

Brigitte García became the youngest mayor in the South American country last year at the age of 26.

Among other things, she campaigned for better access to drinking water for the approximately 17,000 inhabitants of San Vicente, some 100 kilometres east of Guayaquil.

García's body and that of her spokesman Jairo Loor were discovered on Saturday night in a car on a Pacific beach near San Vicente, according to police.

"I am devastated," former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, who like García belongs to the left-wing Citizen Revolution Movement party, wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Luisa González, who ran for the party in last year's presidential election and lost in the run-off, wrote: "No one is safe in Ecuador."

Several politicians were killed in Ecuador last year.

Eleven days before the first round of the presidential election in August, candidate Fernando Villavicencio, who promised to fight corruption, was shot dead after a campaign event in Quito. The government blamed organized crime for his death.

Ecuador serves as a transit country for cocaine, and several crime syndicates are battling for control of the smuggling routes.

The security situation in Ecuador had recently deteriorated dramatically. The murder rate of around 46.5 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants last year was the highest in the history of the country and one of the highest in Latin America.

In January, the government of President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency, which is still in force, following repeated bloody fights in Ecuadorian prisons, some of which are controlled by gangs, and the escape of a gang leader.

Noboa also issued a decree declaring 22 criminal groups to be terrorist organizations and military targets.