BRASïLIA: Inmates rioting for better facilities in a Brazilian jail killed four fellow prisoners, decapitating two of them, and took two guards hostage, officials said yesterday.
The uprising took place in the Cascavel state correctional centre in the southern city of Parana that currently holds 1,140 inmates, according to Elson Faxina, a state judicial spokesman.
“A group of prisoners took six inmates hostage; they killed four and have injured two. They also took hostage two guards,” he said.
“Their demands are about facilities; it is an older building and they want food brought in.”
Faxina said 60 percent of the jail had been taken over by rioting inmates and that negotiations had been broken off until Monday.
State prison officials told G1 news the prisoners launched a violent push for better food and cleaner facilities.
Brazil currently has more than half a million prisoners and faces severe overcrowding. It is short some 200,000 incarceration spots, according to the NGO Conectas that works on prisoners’ rights.--AFP