13 killed in Mexico prison riot
The inmates were killed in a battle involving some 100 prisoners, many armed with home-made knives.
MEXICO CITY (AFP) - At least 13 inmates were killed and 87 others injured in a prison riot in the state of San Luis Potosi, north of Mexico City, said state governor Fernando Toranzo.
Of those injured, at least 22 were hospitalized with serious injuries, Toranzo said in a late Saturday press conference.
The inmates were killed in a battle involving some 100 prisoners, many armed with home-made knives, Toranzo said.
Mexico, engaged in a multi-year war on its powerful drug cartels, faces a serious problem of prison overcrowding.
The government s Human Rights ombudsman office reported that, in 2011 and the first half of 2012, 278 inmates died in Mexican prisons in incidents ranging from fights to suicides.
Mexico has the infrastructure to house 188,200 prisoners, but currently has an incarcerated population of 237,600, according to the ombudsman s office.
One result of the overpopulation is the number of mass jailbreaks. In September, 131 inmates escaped through the front door of a prison in Piedras Negras, a city on the US border.
A jailbreak at a prison in the northern state of Nuevo Leon in February 2012 saw 44 prisoners killed during fighting between two warring drug cartels.
