• Source:ANI
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Amid a state of emergency in Ecuador, a live television broadcast was interrupted by armed men on Tuesday with gunshots and yelling heard on a live feed, as President Daniel Noboa issued a decree declaring 22 gangs as terrorist organizations. Video of the incident, which took place at the state-owned TC Television, went viral on social media. In the video, the armed men, mostly dressed in black, were seen wielding guns and accosting huddled staffers before the feed cut out.

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"We were in a meeting and they alerted us and we were able to hide," said Flores, who was not on the sound stage during the takeover, but said two people at TC had been injured. "We don't know what is happening, people are nervous, there are many colleagues from Gama and TC who are hiding," Flores said, as quoted by news agency Reuters.

After President Daniel Noboa declared a nationwide state of emergency on Monday due to the high-profile gang leader Adolfo "Fito" Macias' escape from a Guayaquil prison, the nation has been rocked by multiple explosions, police kidnappings, and prison unrest. Since Noboa's announcement, at least seven police agents have been kidnapped in three different cities, the National Police of Ecuador said.

Who Is Adolfo Macias

Macias is the leader of Los Choneros, one of the most dangerous gangs in Ecuador which has been connected to maritime drug trafficking to Mexico and the US in cooperation with the Oliver Sinisterra Front in Colombia and the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, according to the Insight Crime Research Centre.

More than 3,000 police officers and personnel of the armed forces have been deployed in pursuit of Adolfo Macias, more popularly known by his alias Fito, the government said on Sunday.

The country's worsening security situation is largely driven by rival criminal organisations, which have been meting out brutal and often public shows of violence in the country's streets and prisons in their battle to control drug trafficking routes. In one of the kidnappings this week, in which three agents were taken, an explosive device had been "placed and detonated" in a vehicle the officers were moving in, police said.

(With Agencies Inputs)