BOA VISTA, Brazil, (millat+APP/AFP) – Brazil was hit
Friday by its second grisly prison massacre in a week, as
inmates beheaded and mutilated fellow prisoners at a northern
jail, leaving 31 dead.
Pictures taken by a police officer at the scene showed
bloodied, mangled bodies piled in a concrete hallway at the
Monte Cristo Farm Penitentiary (PAMC) in Roraima state.
Many of the victims were beheaded, disemboweled or
dismembered, officials said.
The state government said the situation was now
“under control.”
They lowered an earlier death toll of 33 to 31 late
Friday.
“No shots were fired. The victims were killed with sharp
objects and home-made weapons,” said state justice secretary Uziel
Castro.
– Gang infighting? –
====================
The latest unrest came days after jailed gang members
killed 56 rivals in a 17-hour bloodbath Sunday and Monday at
a prison in Manaus, the capital of the neighboring state of
Amazonas.
Unlike that incident, Friday’s violence did not appear
to be an all-out riot but rather a rapid, early morning attack
by one group of inmates against another, lasting less than an
hour, a local government spokeswoman told AFP.
Most of the killings were carried out with knives,
she said.
Deadly prison riots have intensified in Brazil since a
truce broke down in July between the country’s two largest
drug gangs, the First Capital Command (PCC) and the Red
Command (CV).