QUITO, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Four members of the same family were killed in a shooting attack late Thursday in Machala, one of Ecuador's most violent cities, local media reported on Friday.

Police said the attack occurred around midnight at a home where attackers posing as police officers shot four people dead and then set the house on fire.

The victims were a 13-year-old girl, a 17-year-old boy, a 40-year-old woman, and a 41-year-old man with a criminal record for robbery and drug-related offenses.

The attack was reportedly aimed at another resident who survived by hiding in a bathroom. She told police she had received threats hours earlier from a former partner allegedly linked to a criminal gang.

Machala, in Ecuador's southern coastal province of El Oro near the Peruvian border, remains under a state of emergency amid rising organized crime. Ecuador has been under an "internal armed conflict" declared by President Daniel Noboa since January 2024. ■