Former Football Star Mario Pineida Killed as Ecuador Faces Rising Violence

Updated by Faith Barbara N Ruhinda at 1526 EAT on Thursday 18 December 2025

Ecuadorian police said Mario Pineida, a 33-year-old defender for Barcelona de Guayaquil and a former national team player, was shot dead in an apparent attack as violence continues to escalate in the Andean nation.

A second person, whom police did not identify, was also killed in the incident on Wednesday, while a third individual was wounded.

Ecuador’s interior ministry confirmed the death of Mario Pineida but offered no further details. Barcelona de Guayaquil said in a statement that the club and its supporters were mourning the loss of the former defender.

Pineida earned eight caps for Ecuador and appeared in World Cup qualifiers for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, though he was not part of the squad that qualified for the 2026 finals.

His last appearance for the national team came at the 2021 Copa America, when he featured as a late substitute in a group-stage match against Brazil. He was also included in Ecuador’s squad for the 2017 Copa America.

At club level, Pineida began his professional career with Independiente del Valle, where he played from 2010 to 2015, before joining Barcelona SC in 2016. He won two league titles with the Guayaquil-based club and later spent a brief period with Brazil’s Fluminense in 2022.

Local media said the shooting occurred in the Samanes neighbourhood in northern Guayaquil, around 265 kilometres (165 miles) southwest of the capital, Quito.

According to digital outlet Primicias, Pineida was attacked by two assailants riding motorcycles, who opened fire on him, his mother and another woman.

Ecuador, long regarded as one of Latin America’s safest nations, has increasingly become a major transit point for cocaine trafficked from Colombia and Peru to international markets.

Guayaquil has become a focal point of gang-related violence linked to drug trafficking, with several football players in Ecuador targeted in recent months.

Car bombings, shootings and extortion have surged in the coastal city, which recorded 1,900 murders between January and September — the highest toll of any region in Ecuador.

The country is on track to register its most violent year on record, with more than 9,000 homicides expected, according to the Ecuadorian Observatory of Organized Crime. That compares with 7,063 violent deaths last year and a then-record 8,248 in 2023.

President Daniel Noboa has pledged to confront criminal organisations that have expanded their operations across Ecuador in connection with international drug cartels.

In November, a 16-year-old footballer with Independiente del Valle was killed by a stray bullet in Guayaquil. Two months earlier, three players from Ecuador’s second division — Maicol Valencia and Leandro Yepez of Exapromo Costa, and Jonathan Gonzalez of 22 de Junio — also died from gunshot wounds.

Credit to Aljazeera.

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