Ecuador at standstill after two weeks of protests over cost of living crisis

Ecuador has been brought to a near standstill after two weeks of tumultuous protests over a spike in fuel and food prices as global inflation inflames discontent over widening inequality across Latin America.

Clashes broke out in Quito on Thursday night even as the government ceded control of a cultural centre, La Casa de la Cultura, to the Indigenous and peasant farmer protesters who had converged from the Andes and Amazon. It is the same auditorium that the movement occupied in October 2019 when nationwide protests over the slashing of fuel subsidies riled the country.

Sonia Guamangate, an Indigenous woman from Samanga in the volcanic Cotopaxi region, left two children at home to join tens of thousands of protesters who marched to the capital from the countryside.

City dwellers also took to the streets of Quito over the rising cost of living. Mechanical engineer Miguel Terán, who could not get to work due to roadblocks and strikes by bus and taxi drivers, joined the marchers.

Additional reporting by Carla Valdiviezo in Quito