27-year-old mayor of Ecuador shot dead
Bridget Garcia, the youngest mayor of Ecuador at 27, has been shot dead.
Her body and that of her press secretary were found on Monday in a car in the city of San Vicente, where she had won the mayoral election a year ago.
No one has been arrested in connection with the killings yet, and it is unclear what the motive behind these murders is.
Ms. Garcia is the latest politician to be killed in this country located in the Andean region. Ecuador was shaken a year ago following the assassination of Fernando Yávar, a presidential candidate.
The bodies of Ms. Garcia and her communications director, Jairo Lour, were discovered in the early hours of Monday local time. Police said the shots were fired from inside a rented car they were in.
Ms. Garcia, who was a nurse, had won the election as a representative of the opposition party called Citizen Revolution when she was 26 years old.
This region in the Manabí province has been heavily affected by violence related to gangs involved in drug trafficking to lucrative markets in the United States and Europe.
