NATAL, Brazil, (MILLAT+APP/AFP): Brazilian authorities on
Wednesday started transferring some inmates from a prison wracked by deadly gang violence for days, as troops were mobilized elsewhere to help confront a broad crisis in the overcrowded penitentiary system.
Elite officers entered the Alcacuz prison near the northern city of
Natal to start the process, AFP journalists saw.
The facility has been the scene of gruesome violence between two rival gangs since the weekend, when 26 inmates were massacred, most of them beheaded.
“We are going to carry out this transfer as carefully as possible,
respecting all security issues,” a spokesman for the state police, local mayor Eduardo Franco, told reporters.
Four buses were brought in to take away prisoners who were members
of one of the gangs. Three of the buses arrived with inmates from other facilities that were to be put in the vacated cells.
The prisoner transfer underlined the tinderbox climate within
Brazil’s prison system, in which 134 people have been killed in prison violence this year according to the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper, citing justice ministry figures.