Inmates Behind Brazil Deadly Prison Riot Transferred: Official

Altamira, Brazil, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 30th Jul, 2019 ) :Forty-six inmates involved in one of Brazil's deadliest prison riots were being transferred to other jails Tuesday, an official said.

At least 57 people were killed on Monday when fighting broke out between rival drug gang factions in the Altamira Regional Recovery Centre in the northern state of Para.

Sixteen were decapitated in the hours-long battle, but most died in a fire that engulfed part of the overcrowded facility that used converted shipping containers to house some of the inmates.

It was the second major eruption of violence to rock the country's severely overpopulated and deadly prison system in as many months.

Inmates involved in the fighting, including 16 leaders suspected of ordering the riot, were being transported Tuesday by bus or plane to detention facilities, including Federal prisons, in the capital Belem, an official from the state government's penitentiary department told AFP.

Most of the bodies have been recovered from the jail and clean up operations were under way, she said.

The government is providing financial assistance to the families of the dead to help pay for funerals, she added.

- 'Very bad' conditions - Experts estimate hundreds of prisoners are killed in Brazilian prisons every year, mostly in confrontations between rival gangs battling for control of one of the world's most important cocaine markets and trafficking routes.

Monday's riot was one of the deadliest in Brazil in decades. The turf war involved members of Class A Command and Red Command, one of the country's main crime groups, officials said.