Ecuadorean presidential candidate and former lawmaker Fernando Villavicencio has been shot dead, President Guillermo Lasso said, assuring the murder will not go unpunished. Villavicencio was attacked during a campaign event ahead of the presidential polls scheduled to be held on August 20.


"For his memory and his fight, I assure you that this crime will not remain unpunished," Lasso said on X, formerly known as Twitter. "Organized crime have gone very far, but all the weight of the law will fall on them." Lasso said he would host top security officials at an urgent meeting.


"The Security Cabinet will meet in a few minutes in Carondelet. I have asked the president of the CNE, Diana Atamaint; the State Attorney General, Diana Salazar; the President of the National Court of Justice, Iván Saquicela; and to the other State authorities to attend this meeting urgently to discuss this fact that has dismayed the country," Lasso said.


In the purported videos from the campaign event that surfaced on social media, people can be seen taking cover and screaming as gunfire sounded, as reported by Reuters.


Villavicencio was shot multiple times as he left the rally at a high school in Quito, the deputy commander of the Ecuadorean national police, General Manuel Iniguez, said, as reported by The Washington Post.He was rushed to a nearby clinic, where he was declared dead. A police officer also sustained injuries in the attack, General Manuel Iniguez said. The gunmen also launched a grenade toward Villavicencio’s group.


However, the grenade did not explode, The Washington Post reported. Villavicencio was a member of Ecuador’s National Assembly before it was dissolved in May. 


Earlier in June, six people were killed and six were injured in an apparent gang shootout in Ecuador's Guayaquil, the news agency AFP reported, citing police. Police Colonel Marcelo Castillo told AFP that Guayaquil's second mass shooting in June appeared to have been a settling of scores between rival gangs.


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