AN EX-beauty queen has been shot dead while travelling in a car with her baby daughter and partner in Ecuador amid the country’s ongoing struggle with drug cartel violence.

Esther Gabriela Murillo Cruz, 25, was ambushed by two men on a motorbike who sprayed the vehicle with bullets.

The model was rushed to a local hospital in Manta just after 3am on Saturday where she was treated for gunshot wounds to her vital organs.

But despite medics’ best efforts, she was soon pronounced dead.

Her 30-year-old partner and one-year-old baby are also believed to have been hospitalised in the attack, local reports said.

The ex-beauty queen had been travelling on the Circunvalación highway, in Manabí – one of Ecuador’s hardest hit cities by organised crime.

Authorities have since launched an urgent investigation into the attack to determine the perpetrators and their motive.

Esther won three local beauty competitions and became the “Queen of Marabi province” in 2018.

News of her death has left her tens of thousands social media followers devastated – with many calling on leaders to do more to combat crime in the area.

One distraught commenter said: “How sad! And such a girl, with a whole life ahead of her!”

While another wrote: “Comfort and strength to your family”.

The embattled country has seen its murder rate rise eight-fold as brutal gangs battle to control the cocaine trade.

Earlier this year, a man believed to be a British national was lynched and burnt alive in a popular eco-tourism area on the country’s border with Colombia.

A mob stormed a police station in Sucumbios Province where he was being held in custody for an alleged shooting, before dragging him out and setting him alight in front of police officers too terrified to intervene.

The shocking scenes are all too common for a nation whose murder rates now rank amongst the highest in the world, with civilians regularly caught in the crossfire and streets turning lawless as cops struggle to keep up with criminality and violence.

In 2023 alone, the country saw more than 8,000 deaths, an eightfold rise compared to 2018, putting it above other nations famed for their cartel violence such as Mexico and Colombia.

And a new record for the most killings in a single month was broken in January, with 781 killings. 

After a series of riots saw the gangs take control of prisons, rival factions have waged bitter warfare against each other, carrying out brutal medieval-style executions and hanging bodies from bridges to mark their territory and terrify rivals. 

Despite attempts by the country’s government and armed forces to crack down on the cartels, Ecuador remains the world’s number one exporter of cocaine.

Televised takeover

The most dramatic example of the escalating violence occurred in January last year, when masked gunmen broke into a television studio, threatening the presenter while live on air and trying to force him to read out a warning to police. 

“They were kids – kids with guns,” the presenter, Luis Calderón, later told the Guardian.

“They seemed proud of what they were doing… it was as if they were playing a game – only with extremely dangerous and lethal weapons,” he recalled.

Police successfully made 13 arrests following the attack, which also happened in the port city of Gauyaquil.

Then in May, a further eight were killed after a bar was sprayed with bullets where people had gathered to celebrate a birthday in the coastal province of Santa Elena.

Many of the shootings are carried out in a display of dominance, terrifying rivals and keeping local residents subdued. 

Gangs such as Los Tiguerones, Los Lobos, and Los Choneros have even resorted to gruesome tactics such as cutting out the hearts of captured rivals and showing off the killings on social media.

Other victims may find themselves being hanged from bridges, their limp bodies serving as a warning to anyone entering the cartel’s territory. 

While South America has long been associated with drug-related violence, Ecuador for years remained relatively peaceful and free from any serious gang violence.