Ecuador: Journalists held hostage say gang wanted threats to be broadcast

Journalists from a public TV channel in Ecuador said their assailants wanted to be on live TV while they threatened the staff and fired their weapons inside.

Men armed with pistols entered the set of the TC Television network in the port city of Guayaquil during a news program that was airing live in thousands of homes across the nation on Tuesday 9 January.

No one was killed in the attack, and authorities later said that all the masked intruders had been arrested and would be charged with terrorism.

Ecuador’s president later issued a declaration that the violence-plagued country had entered an “internal armed conflict.”