Prison revolt leaves 8 inmates dead in east Guatemala
At least eight inmates have lost their lives in a riot at an overcrowded prison in Guatemala’s eastern state of Izabal, officials say.
Guatemalan Interior Minister Eunice Mendizabal said the eight were killed on Friday after violence broke out at the facility in the port city of Puerto Barrios.
It started after an altercation between two prisoners turned into a battle between rival gangs there.
The state penitentiary service said in a message posted on its Twitter account that 24 other inmates sustained injuries during the revolt.
The service posted photos showing holes in the walls of the jail and said the riot seemed “to have originated with an escape plan that authorities managed to thwart.”
Reports also say the rioters set fire to mattresses and bed sheets and cut power in the facility.
Yesenia Enriquez, the state prosecutor’s spokeswoman, said two of the victims were decapitated and two others burned during Friday’s brawl.
Police eventually managed to take control of the prison, while the bodies of the victims were taken away for autopsies.
Although the facility was constructed for just 146 inmates, it was holding 944 before the revolt erupted.
The incident was the latest in a series of deadly jail clashes in recent years in Guatemala, where street gang members make up the bulk of the Central American country's prison population.
On November 29, at least 17 people were killed in fighting inside a maximum security prison in the southern Guatemalan state of Escuintla.
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