A fire during a prison riot in southwestern Colombia has killed more than 50 people in one of the worst recent incidents of its kind in the country.
The director of the national prison system, Tito Castellanos, said the fire broke out after inmates at a prison in Tuluá lit several mattresses, causing an uncontrollable flame.
He said the prisoners wanted to prevent the guards from breaking up the riot, but did not take into account the ‘consequences of how it will affect them’.
“This is a tragic and disastrous event,” he said.
“There was a situation, apparently a riot, and the mattresses of some prisoners were lit and a fire broke out which unfortunately caused the deaths of 49 prisoners.”
The death toll was later updated to 51.
Another 30 people were injured in the fire, Castellanos said, and dozens more were evacuated.
He also said it is not currently clear whether all who died in the fire were prisoners.
The prison has 1,267 prisoners and the cell block where the fire took place houses 180.
Prisons in Colombia are highly overcrowded, with capacity for 81,000 people, but house about 97,000, according to official figures.
President Iván Duque, who is visiting Portugal, tweeted that the incident would be investigated.
‘We regret the events in the Tuluá prison, Valle del Cauca. “I am in contact with Castellanos and I have given instructions to continue investigations that will enable us to resolve this terrible situation,” he wrote.
Some in Colombia were released during the coronavirus pandemic after more than 20 prisoners were killed during protests in 2020 against overcrowded conditions and a lack of health services.
Elected President Gustav Petro, who will take office in August after becoming the first left-wing Colombian leader to be elected in more than a century, tweeted that prison violence “is a complete rethinking of prison policy towards a humanization.” of prison and dignity for the prisoner ‘.
Meanwhile, hundreds have died in prisons in neighboring Ecuador in recent years, which the government claims is the result of violence between local drug gangs that has so far failed to suppress it.
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