TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) Honduran authorities say at least 14 people have died at a prison after armed inmates started a fire during a riot Thursday.
San Pedro Sula police commissioner Yair Mesa says there are at least 14 dead, but the riot has been brought under control.
Inmates began fighting among themselves and tossed the severed head of one prisoner over the walls of the jail as they held firefighters at bay.
The grisly scene at the prison in the rough northern city of San Pedro Sula came 1 1/2 months after Honduras' overcrowded prisons were hit by the worst prison fire in a century, a Feb. 14 blaze at the Comayagua farm prison that killed 361 inmates.
The tol l in the San Pedro Sula riot appeared nowhere near as bad as the Comayagua tragedy, in part because city fire chief Jose Danilo Flores said the prisoners themselves appeared to be fighting the fire inside the facility.
But Flores said the armed inmates had kept firefighters from entering.
Mesa said police and soldiers "are prepared to enter any time to put down the uprising."
But after Comayagua, the latest incident seemed to a be a tragedy foretold.
In 2008, the latest year for which figures are available, Honduras' prison system had nearly 38 more prisoners than it was built for, according to the London-based International Centre for Prison Studies.
A fire at the San Pedro Sula prison in 2004 killed 107 inmates.
0 comments on 14 dead in Honduran prison fire amid riot :
Post a Comment