Ecuadoran footballer, Mario Pineida, was fatally shot on Wednesday in the port city of Guayaquil, his club confirmed.
Guayaquil has increasingly become a center of gang-related violence tied to drug trafficking, and several footballers in Ecuador have recently fallen victim to attacks.
Pineida, 33, represented Ecuador in the 2018 and 2022 World Cups and spent part of his career at Fluminense in 2022.
In a post on X, his team, Barcelona SC, said it “regrets to inform, with deep sorrow, that it has been officially notified of the death of our player Mario Pineida, an event that occurred following an attack against him” in Guayaquil.
The Interior Ministry confirmed Pineida’s death and announced that a special police unit has been deployed to investigate the incident.
According to the digital outlet Primicias, Pineida was targeted by two assailants riding motorcycles, who opened fire on him, his mother, and another woman.
The killing comes amid a troubling trend in Ecuador. In September, three second-division players were murdered, with one reportedly linked to sports betting.
A month later, local footballer Bryan Angula survived a shooting.
Once considered among the safest countries in Latin America, Ecuador has now become a major cocaine transit route between Colombia and Peru and global consumers
. Violence in Guayaquil has escalated sharply, with car bombings, shootings, and extortion increasing, resulting in 1,900 murders between January and September, the nation’s highest recorded toll.
