Brazil: Over 50 Inmates Killed In Prison Brawl

Most of the victims were decapitated after rival gangs engaged in two days of violent fighting.

Police in northern Brazil are searching for dozens of inmates who escaped from an overcrowded prison complex during a riot that left 56 dead, the BBC reported yesterday, January 3, 2017. The Anisio Jobim Penitentiary Centre, Manaus, in Amazonas State, was cordoned off as officials said 40 of 87 fugitives were recaptured. After putting the death toll at 60, officials later reduced the figure to 56.

Heavily armed police hunted for dozens of inmates who escaped through a series of tunnels. Agency reports quoted Amazonas State Public Security Secretary, Sergio Fontes, as saying that 112 prisoners escaped from the prison, with 72 others from the nearby Antonio Trindade Penal Institute. Only 40 of the escapees were captured, sources said. The unrest started in the afternoon of New Year Day 2017 during fighting between rival gangs. It only ended 17 hours after when the inmates surrendered their weapons and freed the last of 12 prison guards they took hostage.

Sergio Fontes said rival gangs operating inside and outside the prison fought for control over drug trafficking. The violence, he added, was between Family of the North, FDN, a powerful local gang, and their rivals of the First Capital Command, PCC. PCC is one of Brazil’s largest criminal gangs with base in Sao Paulo, some 2,700 km away in the south-east of the country. Inmates got weapons through a hole in a prison wall, officials explained. Several firearms were found in the post-riot search by police, as well as several tunnels. Rioting inmates decapitated their rivals during brutal fighting. A press photographer said bloodied and burnt bodies were piled in carts on a concrete prison yard.

It was the deadliest riot in Brazil since 1992 when a rebellion at the Carandiru Prison in Sao Paulo saw 111 inmates killed before police retook the jail. Brazil has the world’s fourth-largest prison population, with 600,000 inmates. Overcrowding is a serious problem and violent riots are frequent. Reports say the capacity of the Anisio Jobim Penitentiary Centre was for 454 inmates, but it had 1,224 men.

Most of the victims were decapitated after rival gangs engaged in two days of violent fighting.

Police in northern Brazil are searching for dozens of inmates who escaped from an overcrowded prison complex during a riot that left 56 dead, the BBC reported yesterday, January 3, 2017. The Anisio Jobim Penitentiary Centre, Manaus, in Amazonas State, was cordoned off as officials said 40 of 87 fugitives were recaptured. After putting the death toll at 60, officials later reduced the figure to 56.

Heavily armed police hunted for dozens of inmates who escaped through a series of tunnels. Agency reports quoted Amazonas State Public Security Secretary, Sergio Fontes, as saying that 112 prisoners escaped from the prison,...