BRASILIA -- Drug gangs sparked a prison riot that killed 56 people, with decapitated bodies thrown over prison walls in the bloodiest violence in more than two decades in Brazil's overcrowded penitentiary system, officials said onMonday. Sergio Fontes, the security chief for Amazonas state, told reporters several decapitated bodies were thrown over the wall of the prison in the Amazon city of Manaus, with most of those killed coming from the Sao Paulo-based First Capital Command PCC drug gang.
Pedro Florencio, t he Amazonas state prison secretary , said the massacre was a "revenge killing" in a feud between criminal gangs in Brazil. Just as the riot began in one unit of the Anisio Jobim prison complex, dozens of prisoners in the second unit started amass escape in what authorities said was a coordinated effort to distract guards. Overcrowding is extremely common in Brazil's prisons , which suffer endemic violence and what rights groups call medieval conditions with food scarce and cells so packed that prisoners have no space to lie down.
The Anisio Jobim prison complex currently houses 2,inmates despite having a capacity of only Hours after the Anisio Jobim prison revolt ended , prisoners at an adjoining detention center began a riot and attempted to escape. Authorities said the situation was quickly brought under control. Watchdog groups sharply criticize Brazil for its prisons, where deadly riots routinely break out.
The violence was the latest clash between inmates aligned with PCC, Brazil's most powerful drug gang, and a Manaus criminal group known as the North Family. Four inmates were later found dead in another prison in the rural area of Manaus, but state representatives were unable to clarify if a riot had occurred.
Security analysts have said that a truce that held for years between the PCC and CV was broken last year, resulting in months of deadly prison battles between the gangs and sparking fears that chaos would spread to other prisons. In the latest riot, a group of inmates exchanged gunfire with police and held 12 prison guards hostage late on Sunday in the largest prison in Manaus, an industrial city on the banks of the Amazon River, Globo TV reported.
