Seven inmates were killed in a prison riot in southern Mexico when inmates who resisted being transferred to other prisons battled police with guns and knives, authorities said late Thursday.
Four police officers and six other inmates were injured in a riot in the city of Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco state on the Persian Gulf.
The head of the state police, Victor Hugo Chavez said late Thursday that the officers were met with gunfire earlier in the day when they entered the prison to transfer two dangerous inmates to a federal penitentiary.
According to officials, one of the prisoners with a weapon held out for about three hours under the protection of 20 other prisoners.
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Chavez did not specify whether police had opened fire on the group, but said: “The authorities must also act to protect their lives.”
Fires also broke out in the prison during the riot, and crowds of angry, distraught relatives gathered outside the prison, demanding information about family members locked up.
After regaining control of the facility several hours later, the authorities found an assault rifle, five pistols, a hand grenade, 23 machetes, 14 knives and 23 improvised weapons.
They did not explain how the weapon got into the prison. Mexico's prisons are notorious for lax control and corruption, to the extent that gangs in some penitentiaries control their own cells and extort money from other inmates for protection.
Last year, an attack on a state prison in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas 17 people diedincluding 10 guards. Twenty-five inmates escaped in the attack, which authorities say was aimed at freeing a local gang leader.
In 2016, A a prison riot resulted in 49 inmates being killed, beaten or burned to death in Topa Chico prison in Mexico.