Brigitte Garcia, Ecuador’s youngest mayor, and a council member were found shot to death in their car early Sunday, police said in the South American country at the center of a wave of violence by authorities over drug trafficking.

According to Reuters, national police said they were investigating the deaths of Garcia, the 27-year-old mayor of San Vicente, and Jairo Lura after their bodies were found in Manabi province. Both were shot, police said.

García was a member of former President Rafael Correa’s Civic Revolution party.

Correa and Luisa Gonzalez, the party’s presidential candidate in the last election, called García’s death a murder on social media platform X.

“I just found out that they killed our colleague, San Vicente Mayor Brigitte García,” Gonzalez said in the message. “I’m speechless, in shock, no one is safe in Ecuador, NO ONE.”

After the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio last August, Garcia is the latest political figure in the country to be assassinated. Villavicencio, an outspoken critic of corruption and organized crime, was killed while leaving a campaign rally two weeks before the election.

President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency in January amid rising violence, after which gunmen stormed a television station during a live broadcast. Noboa also recognized 22 criminal groups as terrorists.

The state of emergency was extended this month. (News.ro)