Ninety percent of Guayaquil’s illegal land invasions have been cleared, according to the secretariat in charge of the evictions. About 570 houses have been destroyed so far, said Julio César Quiñónez, spokesperson for the secretariat.

The houses cleared were in Thalia Toral, Sergio Toral, La Camila, and Nueva Prosperina in Monte Sinaí, to the northwest of the city.

The families who have been evicted staged protests and resistance. Four people from Thalia Toral are facing charges after $70,000 worth of property damage (Sp) was done to a public hospital that was being built in Monte Sinaí. People were also charged for using sticks and rocks against law enforcement officers.

The goal of the evictions is to clear away any houses built after 2010. About 1,500 police officers and 500 members of the military are involved in the operation.

Se realiza operativo de desalojo masivo en Monte Sinaí, sin novedades hasta el momento. Cero tolerancia invasiones. twitter.com/BurbanoXavier/…

— Xavier Burbano (@BurbanoXavier) 10 de mayo de 2013

Millions of those now living in Guayaquil’s periphery neighbourhoods started out as migrants from the surrounding countryside, and established themselves as residents of the city by becoming squatters. Many of the neighbourhoods that started as land invasions in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s have since been legalized. City services like sewage, water, electricity and waste removal eventually made it into those areas. The city has even granted legal deeds in some areas.

In most cases, squatter areas were established by a strongman who’d then sell individual lots to families. These strongmen are known as land traffickers. Some traffickers owned the large parcels of land they’d illegally split into lots and sell without legal guarantees or access to services (the Toral family name appears on the deeds for 9,500 hectares of the land in Monte Sinaí), and others had no ownership of the land that they profited from (like the Estacio clan).

But in 2010 a presidential decree (#607) was issued to stop the continued expansion of Guayaquil via disordered invasion. Satellite images were taken so any houses that appeared after the cut-off would be considered illegal. Land traffickers (including the Toral patriarch) are now on the provinces Most Wanted list (Sp).

Two-hundred and seventy four thousand people live in Monte Sinaí, according to a study released by the non-profit Fundación Hogar de Cristo in 2012. 

The government has promised the families it removes will be provided spaces in government housing developments, but few of those evicted have taken up the resettlement offer. Many of them chose instead to migrate to other invasion areas, and hope this time they can hold onto their land.