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Forty-nine inmates have died throughout a riot in a jail within the Colombian metropolis of Tuluá in one of many worst latest incidents of its form within the nation, in accordance with the top of the nationwide prisons company.
The director of the company mentioned a fireplace began throughout a protest by prisoners in a single day.
“It’s a tragic and disastrous occasion,” Gen Tito Castellanos advised Caracol Radio on Tuesday. “There was a scenario, apparently a riot, and the prisoners lit some mattresses and a conflagration occurred that sadly triggered the loss of life of 49 prisoners.”
One other 30 folks had been injured, Castellanos mentioned, and dozens evacuated.
The jail within the south-western metropolis has 1,267 inmates and the cell block the place the hearth occurred homes 180.
In Colombia, prisons are extremely overcrowded, with capability for 81,000 folks however housing about 97,000, in accordance with official figures.
President Iván Duque, who’s visiting Portugal, tweeted that the incident can be investigated. “We remorse the occasions within the jail in Tuluá, Valle del Cauca. I’m in contact with Castellanos and I’ve given directions to hold ahead investigations that enable us to make clear this horrible scenario,” he wrote.
The Andean nation launched some prisoners in the course of the coronavirus pandemic after greater than 20 inmates had been killed throughout protests in 2020 in opposition to crowded circumstances and lack of companies.
Jail violence “obliges the whole re-imagining of prisons coverage towards a humanisation of jail and dignity for the prisoner”, mentioned the president-elect, Gustavo Petro, who will take workplace in August.
A whole bunch have died in prisons in neighbouring Ecuador prior to now 12 months, in what the federal government says is violence related to rivalry between drug gangs, which it has did not quell. Many prisons in Latin America are severely overcrowded.
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