More than 50 people died in a fire during a prison riot in southwestern Colombia.
Tito Castellanos, head of the National Penitentiary System, said a fire broke out after an inmate in Tuluá set some mattresses on fire, causing an uncontrollable fire.
He said the prisoners wanted to prevent the guards from breaking up the riot, but did not discuss “the consequences of how it would affect them.”
“This is a tragic and catastrophic event,” he said.
“There was a situation that looked like a riot, a prisoner set a mattress on fire, a fire broke out and unfortunately 49 prisoners died.”
The death toll later rose to 51.
Castellanos said the flame injured another 30 people and evacuated dozens more.
He also said that it is currently unknown if all of those who died in the fire were prisoners.
There are 1,267 prisoners in the prison and house 180 in the Cellblock, where the fire broke out.
According to official statistics, Colombian prisons are overcrowded with a capacity of 81,000, but have a capacity of around 97,000.
President Ivan Duke in Portugal wrote that the case would be investigated on Twitter.
“We are saddened by what happened in Valle del Cavka, Toulouse. I contacted Castellano and instructed him to do an investigation, which could reveal this horrible situation. You can,” he writes.
Some Colombian prisoners were released during the Corovirus pandemic after more than 20 prisoners were killed in 2020 during protests against congestion and lack of medical services.
President-elect Gustav Petro, who will take office in August after becoming Colombia’s first elected leftist leader in more than a century, said prison violence is “a prison for humanization and dignity. We have been forced to completely rethink our policies. he wrote on Twitter. Prisoner’.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people were killed in an adjacent Ecuadorian prison last year. The government claims it is the result of previously uncontrollable violence between local drug gangs.
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Source: Metro
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