Jan 10: Masked gunmen have broken into a live television studio in Ecuador and threatened terrified staff.

Employees were forced onto the floor during the broadcast by the public television channel TC in the city of Guayaquil before the live feed cut out.

Police say they later freed all the staff and made 13 arrests, showing off weapons recovered.

At least 10 people have been killed since a 60-day state of emergency began in Ecuador on Monday.

The emergency was declared after a notorious gangster vanished from his prison cell. It is unclear whether the incident at the TV studio in Guayaquil was related to the disappearance from a prison in the same city of the boss of the Choneros gang, Adolfo Macías Villamar, or Fito as he is better known.

In neighbouring Peru, the government ordered the immediate deployment of a police force to the border to prevent any instability crossing into the country.

The US has said it condemns the “brazen attacks” in Ecuador and is “co-ordinating closely” with President Daniel Noboa and his Ecuadorean government and stands “ready to assist”.

Ecuador is one of the world’s top banana exporters but also exports oil, coffee, cocoa, shrimp and fish products. A surge in violence in the Andean nation, inside and outside its prisons, has been linked to fighting between drug cartels, both foreign and local, over control of cocaine routes to the US and Europe.

During Tuesday’s assault at the TV station, one gunman pointed a pump-action shotgun at the head of one of the captives, who was also threatened with a revolver.

In recent years, the country’s prisons have been plagued by violent feuds between jailed members of rival gangs, often resulting in multiple massacres of inmates.

The Choneros are a powerful prison gang thought to be behind many of the deadly riots and prison fights which have erupted in Ecuador’s jails over recent years.

Fito is thought to have absconded just hours before his planned transfer. Two prison guards have been detained on suspicion of helping him escape.

His escape is also a blow to the government of President Noboa, who was sworn in in November after winning an election tarnished by the assassination of presidential candidate and journalist Fernando Villavicencio.

Villavicencio had reported receiving death threats from Fito just days before he was shot dead while leaving a campaign rally in Quito.