Armed men arrested after storming an Ecuador TV studio

Men with their faces covered entered the set of the TC Television network in the port city of Guayaquil and shouted that they had bombs.

Masked men broke onto the set of a public television channel in Ecuador waving guns and explosives during a live broadcast Tuesday, and the president issued a decree declaring that the South American country had entered an “internal armed conflict.”

The men armed with pistols and what looked like sticks of dynamite entered the set of the TC Television network in the port city of Guayaquil and shouted that they had bombs. Noises similar to gunshots could be heard in the background. It was not immediately clear if any station personnel were injured.

Alina Manrique, the head of news for TC Television, said she was in the control room, across from the studio, when the group of masked men entered the building. One of the men pointed a gun at her head and told her to get on the floor, Manrique said.

Some of the assailants ran from the studio and tried to hide elsewhere in the building when they realized they were surrounded by police, she said.

“I am still in shock” Manrique told The Associaed Press in a phone interview. “Everything has collapsed .... All I know is that its time to leave this country and go very far away.”