Fifty-one inmates have died during a riot in a prison in the Colombian city of Tuluá in one of the worst recent incidents of its kind in the country.
The director of the national prison agency said a fire had started during an overnight prisoner protest.
“It’s a tragic and disastrous event,” General Tito Castellanos told Caracol Radio on Tuesday. “There was a situation, apparently a riot, and the prisoners lit some mattresses and a conflagration took place which unfortunately resulted in the death of 49 prisoners.”
He later said two more people had died after being taken to hospital.
Another 30 people were injured, he said, and dozens were evacuated.
The Southwest City Prison has 1,267 inmates. The block of cells where the fire took place houses 180 people.
Colombian prisons are very crowded, with a capacity for 81,000 people but about 97,000, according to official data.
The country’s president, Iván Duque, who is visiting Portugal, tweeted that the incident would be investigated. “We regret the events in the Tuluá prison, Valle del Cauca. I am in contact with Castellanos and I have given instructions to carry out investigations that will allow us to clarify this terrible situation, “he wrote.
Colombia released some prisoners during the coronavirus pandemic after more than 20 inmates were killed during the 2020 protests against overcrowding and lack of services.
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Prison violence “forces us to completely reimagine prison policy towards a humanization of the prison and the dignity of the prisoner,” said President-elect Gustavo Petro, who will take office in August.
Hundreds of people have died in neighboring Ecuador’s prisons last year, in what the government says is violence related to rivalry between drug gangs, which it has failed to stifle. Many prisons in Latin America are overcrowded.