At least 44 dead in prison riot in Mexico

A security official of a state prison in Mexico said that 44 prisoners were killed on Sunday during an inmate riot thought to have staged to cover a breakout.

The jail’s director and all guards on duty at the time of the riot are being detained.

The riot broke out at around 2:00am on Sunday in a high-security section of the state prison in Apodaca in Mexico and around 750 prisoners were involved in a fight between two cell blocks.

Nuevo Leon state public security spokesman Jorge Domene Zambrano said that when counting the dead, several prisoners, although the number was still unknown, was discovered to be missing.

State police took two hours to regain control of the situation but 44 people were killed by makeshift knives and blows.

Two rival cartels are being looked into as investigators believe the split between the Gulf and Zeta cartels spiked violence around Mexico’s third-largest region, Monterrey.

Such violent episodes are not uncommon in Mexico’s prisons which see gangs and drug cartels battle for control of penitentiaries and stage jail breaks, however, the riot on Sunday was one of the deadliest so far.