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Summary At least 25 people were killed in a gun battle between two groups in a prison in Venezuela.
Twenty-five people were killed during a prison riot and dozens were wounded when two groups of inmates waged a gunbattle inside the penitentiary while hundreds of relatives were visiting, Venezuelan officials said Monday.The violence erupted at Yare I prison south of Caracas on Sunday, and at least one of those slain was a relative of an inmate, said Iris Varela, the governments prisons minister.It was the latest and deadliest in a series of bloody clashes that have flared in Venezuelas overcrowded prisons and become a major problem for President Hugo Chavezs government.Varela told state television Monday afternoon that 17 of the 25 dead had been identified so far. She said some of them had been shot multiple times in the head. Forty-three other people were wounded, including 29 inmates and 14 visiting relatives, Varela said.About 900 women who were at the prison to see inmates when the fighting broke out were still inside, she said. It wasnt immediately clear why they werent coming out.Varela indicated the situation had stabilized by Monday morning and said authorities planned to talk with inmates to try to impose order there. The mother of one prisoner said armed inmates still held the facility.Varela said those behind the killings are going to have to answer for this. She didnt provide details about how the inmates relative died.Carlos Nieto, an activist who monitors human rights in Venezuelan prisons, said the gunbattle lasted about four hours and involved groups fighting for control.Yajaira Morroy, the mother of a 27-year-old inmate at the prison, said her son suffered a gunshot wound in a leg and had been trying to help a relative of another inmate who was wounded and then died. She said her son managed to reach a guard post and was taken to a hospital.Morroy said during a telephone interview that the situation inside the prison had calmed and that some relatives who had been stranded inside were able to come out. But she said that armed inmates were still in control of the facility and that National Guard troops had not gone inside.Nieto said the riot shows that the most serious prison problem, the weapons possessed by inmates, hasnt been solved. He noted that less than a month ago, another bloody riot erupted at another prison in Merida state.Violence has proliferated inside Venezuelas prisons, where inmates often obtain weapons and drugs with the help of corrupt guards.The watchdog group Venezuelan Prisons Observatory says 560 people were killed in Venezuelan prisons last year. It also says the pace of the violence increased during the first half of this year, with at least 304 inmates killed.Venezuela currently has 33 prisons built to hold about 12,000 inmates, but officials have said the prisons population is about 47,000. Hundreds are held in Yare I, though a precise count wasnt immediately available.
