At least 18 killed/Beheaded, in new prison riot in Honduras
Pastor Dale Morgan
At least 18 killed/Beheaded, in new prison riot in Honduras
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Reuters
Saturday, May 3, 2008; 6:14 PM
TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Police have quelled a riot at Honduras' main
prison in which at least 18 inmates died, a Security Ministry spokesman
said on Saturday.
The riot at the National Penitentiary north of the capital began late on
Friday and was the second such incident in the country's overcrowded
prison system in a week.
"The inmates were killed with knives and machetes ... . They were all
covered in blood and there are several beheaded bodies," spokesman
Hector Ivan Mejia told Reuters.
Last Saturday nine prisoners were killed in a riot at another prison in
the northern city of San Pedro Sula.
The Central American country's 25 prisons are overflowing with some
12,000 inmates. Fights are frequent as members of street gangs, known as
maras, vie for control inside the penitentiaries.
The streets of Honduras' main cities are blighted by maras, who often
are involved in drug and weapons trafficking.
(Reporting by Gustavo Palencia; Writing by Cyntia Barrera Diaz; Editing
by Xavier Briand)