On March 27th, 2015 the Ecuadorian Secretary of Irregular Settlements illegally evicted forty families of Isla Trinitaria, one of Guayaquil's poorest neighbourhoods. They entered without notice with 200 police officers and demolition machinery to destroy 40 houses, to make room for a boardwalk. Those families were left homeless in the rain.
Some families made makeshift shelters with the ruins of their homes, others found space in municipal shelters and refuge with their local church. The government offered them with bamboo homes at an inflated cost that few of the evicted could afford. Today, most of the people of Isla Trinitaria are living with family, relatives or friends.
This project was possible to make with the help of CDH, a local human rights NGO, and with the funding of the Fotoperiodismo por la Paz: Juan Antonio Serrano Grant for Peace Photography.
Please read the Full Text written by Fernanda Carrera.
Inhabitants of Isla Trinitaria, one of Guayaquil's poorest neighborhoods, pick up the remains of their houses after about 400 policemen destroyed 40 houses without a warning.
Once the 40 houses were destroyed, the inhabitants of these houses set fire to the rubble of their homes to avoid the cops from coming back with their machinery to demolish the makeshift homes built to withstand the night and the rain .
A local man watches as Ángela Troya tells him how the machinery ripped the roof from her house.
After strong rains, the mattresses where the evicted families slept were ruined because they were very close to the ground.
Police in riot gear intimidate Walter Moreira for him to stay away from his house, which is about to be destroyed to make room for a stretch of the boardwalk.
Weeks after the evictions took place, the families were living in a makeshift colective tent beside where their houses used to stand.
Rosa Caicedo looks at a portrait of John Paul II in her mother's house. Weeks before the eviction, the residents of the sector protested in a nearby avenue. Policemen arrived to suppress the demonstration. At this meeting Rosa (seven months pregnant) affirms she was attacked with a stun gun (taser) in her womb by a cop. Her son died in her womb because of this discharge (according to a medical report). Rosa sued the police who assaulted her, but failed to follow up the case because her work as a security guard leaves her very little free time, and she needs the money to buy a new house.
Part of the argument of the Technical Secretariat of irregular settlements for evicting the 40 families of the sector was that their houses were seated in a protected area, and that its existence there threatened the mangroves on the banks of the "Estero Salado".
A group of evicted peopel complain to a representative of the covernment about their living conditions and the lack of a paln to relocate the now homelesss families.
Yeckson "The Destroyer" Preciado is a retired boxer who lives in the area of eviction. Since early 2015 he gives free box classes to about 30 younglings of the community in an empty courtyard of one of the nearby houses. A few months ago, the Ministry of Sport handed him a space, equipment and a monthly salary to continue teaching.
Johanna comforts her newborn daughter. This is his second daughter, Johanna's house, where she lived with her first child, was destroyed along with 39 other houses while she was 7 months pregnant.
Evicted citizens join forces to take care of each other, so as to help in daily tasks like cooking or taking care of their children while they play.
A youngster plays by his new home in Monte Sinai. His mother joined the relocation plan of the Housing Ministry to buy a two room bamboo house for $ 5,877
A child plays in a recreational area of the new Boardwalk of the Estero Salado while machinery employed by the state destroys a house to expand it.
Those relocated to Mount Sinai complain of constant racist acts against them. In my car, former inhabitants of Isla Trinitaria seek for a 7 year old girl whose teachers left out of the local school without supervision. The girl appeared half an hour later, after taking a bus on her own to get home.