The Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alicia Bárcena, announced this Saturday that the Mexican Embassy in Ecuador “will remain closed indefinitely” and that the Ministry “will evacuate all diplomatic personnel and their families” from the country this Sunday.
“On instructions from President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Alicia Bárcena Ibarra, coordinates the return of diplomatic personnel accredited in Ecuador, along with their families, after the violent attack perpetrated by the Ecuadorian Police on the Mexican Embassy on the night of Friday, April 5,” Foreign Affairs reported in a press release.
Thus, a total of 18 people will travel this Sunday on a commercial flight from Ecuador to Mexico City, according to the note in which Bárcena thanked the support that “a large number of friendly and allied countries” have provided to the Mexican authorities. to ensure the integrity” of its diplomatic staff, ensuring that “they will accompany them on the journey to the airport in the city of Quito.”
Following the evacuation of its workers in Ecuador, the Embassy and consular services of Mexico in that country will remain closed indefinitely.
“We are attentive to the diplomats of our country, they are not alone. They have shown dignity and decorum, as was evident with the attitude of Raquel Serur, our ambassador, and Roberto Canseco, head of the embassy’s Chancellery,” he said. stated López Obrador.
For his part, Bárcena has promised to “ensure the safety and respect for the rights” of his compatriots and has stated that “the Mexican and business community residing in Ecuador will be able to receive assistance through the Registration System for Mexican Persons in the Foreign Affairs (SIRME), as well as the Mexican embassies in Chile, Colombia and Peru”.
These statements come after “police from Ecuador forcibly entered” the Mexican Embassy and “detained the country’s former vice president Jorge Glas Espinel, who was a refugee and processing asylum due to the persecution and harassment he faces.
Glas, it should be remembered, had remained at the Mexican diplomatic headquarters since mid-December, where he entered citing fear for his personal safety and freedom. The Embassy welcomed him as a guest and his lawyers already reported weeks ago that they had submitted a formal request for political asylum.
This maneuver by the former vice president occurred after the National Police ordered his arrest to give a statement to the Prosecutor’s Office in the case of possible embezzlement of public funds in the reconstruction of the province of Manabí after the 2016 earthquake, which left more than 670 dead. .
After the declaration of the Mexican ambassador in Quito as ‘persona non grata’ and her subsequent expulsion from the country, the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, announced that his country would finally grant political asylum to the man who was vice president of Ecuador with Rafael Correa during ten years, the trigger for this diplomatic crisis that has exploded with the entry of the Ecuadorian Police into the Mexican Embassy.
