FRONTLINE Goes Inside Ecuador’s Drug War, Illuminating the Stark Human Toll

Drug War in Ecuador

Watch the documentary at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS App starting Nov. 11, 2025, at 7/6c. It will premiere on PBS stations (check local listings) and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel that night at 10/9c. It will also be available on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel.

Once one of Latin America’s most peaceful nations, Ecuador has now become one of its most violent. Foreign cartels have joined with local gangs to control the drug trade, funneling cocaine to the U.S. and Europe, and pushing the homicide rate in Ecuador to record levels. In response, Ecuador’s government declared a state of emergency last year, and sent the military onto the streets and into gang-plagued prisons to crack down. 

A new FRONTLINE documentary goes inside the Drug War in Ecuador and illuminates the stark human toll, drawing on deep access to those involved in the struggle, from the military and police to the gangs to the families caught in the crossfire.

“It used to be a peaceful, quiet city, where children played outside,” one woman in the city of Esmereldas, an epicenter of the violence, says in the film. “ Seeing so many kids we watched grow up die so cruelly, beheaded just like that… It’s something deeply painful, so very sad.”

Tense, human and shocking, the documentary from Oscar®-nominated and Emmy®-winning filmmaker Marcel Mettelsiefen (Children of Syria) premieres Nov. 11 on PBS and online.

The film follows Father José Antonio Maeso, a well-known gang violence mediator in Ecuador, as he works in violence-scarred neighborhoods and also collects evidence of alleged abuses by the police and military. 

“Before, it was the gangs who put the dead on the streets,” he says in the documentary. “But now it is the police and military who are also putting the dead and disappeared on the streets.” 

The Ecuador government has defended its crackdown, and the film follows a key player in the effort, Colonel Javier Buitron, then governor in Esmeraldas, a hotbed of gang violence. 

“The criminal organizations wanted to rule the country. We had to make decisions, crucial decisions for the well-being of all Ecuadorians,” Buitron says, adding, “The State of Emergency allows us to enter, track, pursue, search inside homes, without waiting for court orders. We are fighting with great force. We are beating them, taking criminals out of hiding. We’re forcing our way into criminals’ homes.”

Finally, the film follows Ronny Medina, a grieving father who’s seeking justice for his 11-year-old son, Steven. Steven’s burned body, and those of three other boys he was playing soccer with, was found after surveillance footage showed the military detaining him. Ecuador’s military said the soldiers released the boys alive and blamed gangs for their deaths. Ronny and Silvana, Steven’s mother, are determined to fight for answers and accountability, and to stay strong.

“Look, if I bend, if I fall, then my kids will, too,” Ronny says. “And I can’t show my children that I am suffering.” 

Raw and profound, Drug War in Ecuador is a powerful look at the ongoing crisis in the country.

“In many ways, the film exposes the moral fault lines of a country at war with itself,” says Mettelsiefen, who spent months in Ecuador filming, “And it raises a profound question about how far can a state can go in its fight against evil before becoming what it seeks to destroy.” 

Drug War in Ecuador will be available to watch at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS App starting Nov. 11, 2025, at 7/6c. It will premiere on PBS stations (check local listings) and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel that night at 10/9c and will also be available on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel. Subscribe to FRONTLINE’s newsletter to get updates on events, podcast episodes and more related to Drug War in Ecuador.

Credits Drug War in Ecuador is a Duskwater Films production for GBH/FRONTLINE and ITV in association with The Big Story Films. Filmed and directed by Marcel Mettelsiefen. The producers are Stephen Ellis, Marcel Mettelsiefen, Mayte Carrasco and Ahisha Ghafoor. The associate producer is Esme Ramlal. The senior producer is Eamonn Matthews. The executive producer for ITV is Tom Giles. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.

About FRONTLINE FRONTLINE, U.S. television’s longest running investigative documentary series, explores the issues of our times through powerful storytelling. FRONTLINE has won an Academy Award® as well as every major journalism and broadcasting award, including 110 Emmy Awards and 34 Peabody Awards. Visit pbs.org/frontline and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to learn more. FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, Park Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund, with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen. 

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