Prison riot in Brazil leaves at least 10 inmates dead

 At least 10 inmates have been killed in a prison riot in northeastern Brazil, the latest in a wave of uprisings in the country’s overcrowded prisons that have killed nearly 100 this year.

The riot began around 5pm Saturday at the State Penitentiary of Alcacuz, near Natal in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte, said Juliska Azevedo, a spokeswoman for the state government.

In a statement, the authorities said that the riot was caused by a fight between prisoners from two wings and that at least 10 had been confirmed dead.

“A group of prisoners managed to get out of their cells and invade another wing,” said Caio Bezerra, the secretary of public security and social defence for Rio Grande do Norte.

Late Saturday, the police had yet to regain control of the entire prison.

Authorities were examining images circulating on social media, including one of three decapitated heads in a prison yard, Bezerra said.

“We are verifying if that happened at Alcacuz,” he said.

Killings and decapitations are common in Brazil’s prisons, but violence has exploded this year. The latest uprising followed the massacre of 56 prisoners during a riot at a jail near Manaus in the Amazon state of Amazonas on New Year’s Day. Four more prisoners were killed in a nearby prison the next day.

State authorities ascribed blame for the Manaus deaths to the Family of the North, an Amazon drug gang that had attacked prisoners connected to a rival gang, the Sao Paulo-based First Capital Command. The gangs were believed to be fighting for control of drug smuggling routes.

Four days later, 33 prisoners were killed and many were dismembered at a prison in Boa Vista in Roraima state, in the far north of Brazil. Authorities said the First Capital Command was behind the killings. Then four more prisoners were killed in a third Manaus prison after being moved from the site of the first massacre.

Azevedo said that the gang, known by its Portuguese initials, PCC, and a Rio Grande do Norte gang called the Crime Syndicate were involved in the riot Saturday.

source: GULF NEWS