A drug-related rivalry between gangs in Brazilian prisons has led to the death of 26 inmates with three gruesomely beheaded.
The bodies of the killed inmates
Three people were beheaded and 26 inmates confirmed dead after riot broke out at a prison in Brazil.
However, security forces stormed the prison at dawn on Sunday and
restored order after 14 hours of violence, local authorities said. They
now believe all bodies are accounted for.
According to Dailymail,
rival drug gangs have been clashing in the country's prison system
since the start of the year and a number of massacres have led to 140
prisoner deaths.
The state security office for Rio Grande do Norte state had
reported earlier in the day that there were 27 deaths, but later lowered
that by one. State security officials said fighting between rival gangs
broke out Saturday at the adjacent Alcacuz and Rogerio Coutinho prisons
near the city of Natal.
Officials waited until dawn Sunday before entering to try to re-impose control, state security chief Caio Cesar Bezerra said.
"This way we guaranteed a calm intervention, a pacific intervention without resistance from the inmates," Bezerra said.
Photos taken yesterday show the magnitude of violence that plagues the country's incarceration system.
Like many prisons across the country, Alcacuz is overcrowded, with
more than 1,000 inmates crammed into a facility meant for 620.
Another official earlier said at least three inmates were beheaded -
a feature of similar massacres in other jails at the start of this
month.
Police had surrounded the prison overnight, but waited until noon
to enter because of reports that inmates remained armed and out of their
cells.
They were eventually rounded up and stripped naked for an
inspection as angry relatives of the inmates gathered outside the prison
waiting for information.
The bloodbath that erupted on Saturday night was the latest of
several gruesome gang-related massacres this year in the country's
overcrowded prisons. The recent outbreak of prison violence began on
January 1, when 56 inmates were killed in the northern state of
Amazonas.
Authorities said the Family of the North gang targeted members of
Brazil's most powerful criminal gang, First Command, in a clash over
control of drug-trafficking routes in northern states.
Family members of the killed weeping
Many of the dead were beheaded and dismembered. Four other inmates were killed at a smaller prison.
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