Simultaneous clashes between prisoners, members of rival gangs, resulted in one of them losing his life and seven others being injured last Saturday in four prisons in Honduras, the prison authorities announced.

Guards, “in cooperation with police units, managed to restore order in the four prisons where riots broke out,” the spokeswoman for the national penitentiary institute, Digna Aguilar, told the press.

The four prisons are located in the cities of Tamara (east), El Porvenir (north), Santa Barbara and Morocelli (northwest).

“Clashes between members of two criminal organizations” resulted in one inmate being killed and two others injured at the Santa Barbara prison, three injured at Morocelli and two at Tamara, Ms. Aguilar said.

The injured were taken to different hospitals, the spokeswoman added.

A source close to the prison system told the press that gang members “received instructions from abroad to destabilize national security” during the Catholic Easter week.

Media reported that shots were fired inside prisons; authorities have not confirmed that inmates were in possession of weapons.

Some 22,000 people are held in about thirty prisons in Honduras. Some of the prisons are characterized by the authorities as true schools of crime.