At least 33 inmates killed in another Brazil prison riot

At least 33 prisoners have died in a penitentiary in the northern state of Roraima, Brazilian authorities said on Friday, adding to the 60 deaths reported at other prisons.

Friday’s statement from the justice secretary said the prisoners died overnight at the Agricultural Penitentiary of Monte Cristo. It did not provide details. A police statement said officers, including a heavily armed military-like riot squad, had been deployed to the prison. A military police spokesperson declined to comment further.

The apparent bloodshed comes just days after rebellions in other two prisons left 60 dead in the neighbouring state of Amazonas. wAuthorities say gangs are fighting for the control of drug routes in the northern part of the country, which borders Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and the Guianas.

Four prisons in the neighbouring state of Amazonas saw riots Sunday and Monday. One institution suffered the country’s worst prison bloodshed since 1992, with half of the 56 slain beheaded and several others also dismembered. In another of the riots, four prisoners died.

A total of 184 inmates escaped from Amazonas prisons in the disturbances. As of Thursday afternoon, only 65 had been recaptured.

Authorities say that in Amazonas, the local Family of the North gang attacked members of Sao Paulo-based First Command, Brazil’s biggest criminal organisation. The two fight over the control of prisons and drug routes in northern Brazil.

In October, a riot at the Agricultural Penitentiary of Monte Cristo, the same where disturbances were reported on Friday, left 18 dead.

 But about six months ago PCC and Red Command split, as PCC moved to take control of lucrative drug routes across the border with Paraguay and become Brazil’s dominant gang.

Experts say PCC also has been moving to infiltrate areas in Red Command’s home base of Rio de Janeiro, further stoking a turf war that threatens to spill onto the streets of Brazil’s biggest cities.

Since the split, Red Command has allied itself with smaller regional gangs to confront PCC, primarily in the north and northeast of Brazil, where this week’s prison violence has boiled over.

Alcadipani, the public security expert, said that Brazil’s penitentiary system has been “self-regulated” by the gangs and that mass killings were rare until recent months because of a truce between Brazil’s biggest criminal factions.

“But we see that as soon as we have a gang war, these killings are inevitably going to happen because the state has no control over the prisons,” said Alcadipani.