Noboa, who came to power in November, has promised to quell the violence related to the drug trade.
Ecuador’s TC television channel’s live broadcast was interrupted on Tuesday when armed people stormed the studio.
People who entered the studio told the staff to lie down and sit on the floor. Shots and screams were heard during the scene.
Some of the attackers who broke into the studio gestured at the cameras, and one attacker was heard shouting “no police”.
The Ecuadorian National Police has said on social media that its special forces are on the scene.
Images from another Ecuadorian TV channel showed police outside TC’s studio in the city of Guayaquil.
Army on the move against drug gangs
The president of the country Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency in the country on Monday, after which seven police officers have been kidnapped. Noboa, who came to power in November, has promised to quell the violence related to the drug trade.
Noboa declared on Tuesday that the country is in a state of “internal armed conflict”. He ordered the army into a military operation against the country’s powerful drug gangs.
– I have ordered the army to carry out military operations to neutralize these groups, Nokoa wrote on social media after the gangs declared “war” against security forces and civilians.
Source: AFP, Reuters