Story By: Alex Cope, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
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This is the moment cops stop a driver and find that the ‘sleeping’ passenger in the back of the packed vehicle is actually dead.
The shocking incident took place as the car was reaching a toll booth in the Cerecita community in the province of Guayas in southern Ecuador.
Local media report that when the police and army stopped the driver, he and the other passengers claimed the man in the back of the 4WD was “sleeping”.
A soldier can be seen telling the passengers to “wake him up” repeatedly before he tells everyone in the car to get out.
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Local media report one of the passengers told the soldier “he just died, we’re just going here to Cerecita, no further”.
Local media report the dead man was 61-years-old and those in the car with him, two men and a woman, were his relatives. The man’s death certificate was reportedly found inside the vehicle.
It is unclear if those in the car were arrested or if the man who was not named had died from the coronavirus.
Ecuador has reportedly seen a sharp increase in the price of funerals in the COVID-19 pandemic, principally in the province of Guayas which has been the worst-hit area of the country.
Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo, 40, has announced that “regulations so that controls can be made and sanctions applied to funeral homes or cemeteries” will be brought in immediately to stop profiteering.
According to the latest figures from the Johns Hopkins University, Ecuador has suffered 4,965 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 272 deaths and 339 recoveries.
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