Alternate assemblyman and social media influencer Cristhian Nieto and his wife were shot and killed on Sunday night in the city of Manta, western Ecuador. “The death of the individual (Nieto) with several bullet impacts is confirmed,” police colonel Fabary Montalvo confirmed to the media on Sunday night.
The substitute legislator, from the opposition party Revolución Ciudadana, and his wife Nicole Burgos were attending a circus performance in the center of the port city of Manta, in the province of Manabí, when a group of armed men entered through the back of the tent set up for the event and opened fire. Montalvo added that the attack was “directed” against the assemblyman. Two other people were injured but survived. Around 12 ballistic clues had been collected by the police by Sunday night.
Burgos, the assemblyman’s wife, was live streaming from her TikTok account when the attack began. The horror and desperation of those present was recorded in images that quickly went viral on social networks.
Cristhian Nieto, 34, was an alternate assemblyman for legislator Mónica Salazar, representative for the province of Los Ríos (southwest). The legislator was also a renowned social media influencer, where he used the pseudonym Cristhian Rescata as he did social work with orphaned children, abandoned animals, and drug users.
The National Assembly expressed on Sunday night, through its X account, a “deep feeling of sorrow and solidarity with their families and friends” in the face of the “terrible murder” of the couple.
Two other murders of politicians have recently shaken the province of Manabí. In March, the mayor of San Vicente Brigitte García was shot, and in July 2023, the mayor of Manta Agustín Intriago was assassinated while touring a city neighborhood.
Located between Colombia and Peru, the world’s largest cocaine producers, Ecuador became a logistics center for sending drugs to the United States and Europe years ago. In January, President Daniel Noboa declared the country in an “internal armed conflict” in order to deploy the army to neutralize around twenty criminal gangs.
