CARACAS: At least 55 people were killed and 90 others wounded in clashes between prison gangs and security guards at a facility in northwest Venezuela, a hospital director said yesterday.
Television images had earlier shown National Guard troops surrounding the Uribana prison in Lara state as inmates in bloody clothes were taken out of the building. Behind the barriers, relatives of the prisoners — most of them women — waited for news of their loved ones, many of them in tears.
“There are 55 dead already in the morgue,” hospital director Ruy Medina said. Around 30 people were still being treated, he said, adding that the patients are “progressing satisfactorily,” and that more would likely be released during the day.
Medina had earlier said that most of those injured had suffered gunshot wounds, and that 14 people had injuries severe enough to require surgery. He had called the initial death toll of 50 “alarming,” saying it was based solely on bodies brought to the hospital.
Prison authorities have not yet released an official figure for the toll of those killed and wounded in the riot, but a press conference is expected later Saturday from Iris Varela, the minister responsible for Venezuela’s prisons.
Vice President Nicolas Maduro, freshly back in the country after visiting recovering President Hugo Chavez in Cuba, called the riot “regrettable” and “tragic,” and said an investigation had been launched. Varela said the riot was sparked after inmates rebelled when prison authorities launched a sweep of the facility in search of illicit weapons.
Authorities had swept to “completely disarm” the prisoners after receiving a tip-off that prison gangs were readying to fight, she said. Opposition parties immediately attacked the government, accusing it of exercising lax control over the prison system.
“Who will they blame for this massacre this time around?” opposition leader and former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said on Twitter, calling the government “incapable and irresponsible.”
Humberto Prado, head of the non-governmental Venezuelan Prison Monitoring Organisation, said the government “had failed to take responsibility for the events” and instead was “piling blame on the media.” The situation in Uribana prison has been monitored by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights since 2006, he added. AFP
