Authorities have reported that a riot between inmates armed with guns and knives inside the Latacunga penitentiary in central Ecuador on Monday left at least 15 people dead and 20 injured.
The prison officials claimed that the fight was due to national and international drug trafficking groups which have turned the Andean nation’s jails into the scene of repeated massacres as the groups fight for power and drug proportion rights.
Videos in which gunfire and the screams of inmates could be heard and they were posted on social media.
Ecuador’s national penitentiary service confirmed the death toll in the Latacunga prison, located 50 miles south of the capital of Quito.
It is not yet confirmed if there might be more dead bodies in the penitentiary, but the authorities are still searching the jail’s pavilions for bodies.
Ecuador’s jail system is designed for about 30,000 people, but some 35,000 inmates were held in 53 state prisons as of last month, which means about 5,000 more than the planned population.
Inmate riots and murders have been for a long time in Ecuador’s jail system. Some 316 inmates were killed inside Ecuador’s lockups last year, according to the penitentiary service.
The worst massacre took place in September of last year in the Litoral Penitentiary in Guayaquil, where 125 prisoners were killed.
So far this year there have been 90 deaths. The number could go up, as there were multiple casualties in the latest Latacunga clash, many were injured and announced to be in critical condition.
