The inmates set fire to their mats to prevent the Police from breaking up a fight in a pavilion of the Tuluá prison where they lived crowded
At least 51 people have died and thirty have been injured due to a fire caused by prisoners during a riot in the Colombian prison of Tuluá. The tragedy occurred this past morning when the Police went to the prison cell to intervene in a fight between inmates. At first it was thought that they might be plotting an escape. The other inmates set fire to the mattresses in the cells in order to block the agents’ passage and “cover up the situation,” according to the director of the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute, General Tito Castellanos.
The flames reached outrageous proportions, unleashing a dense smoke that spread down the corridor, trapping the mutineers. 1,267 detainees live in the prison, 17% more than the total capacity of the establishment. About 180 who were held in a medium-security ward were affected by the heat and smoke. In fact, the “majority of the deceased were due to inhalation” of gases. The agents had to resort to the fire extinguishers while awaiting the rapid arrival of the firefighters, who continued the extinction work. During the fire, officials evacuated dozens of prisoners. “In another case, the result would have been worse than what we currently have,” said Castellanos, who described the incident as a “great tragedy.” Many of the deceased lost their lives in their dungeons.
“Unfortunately there was a riot in pavilion number eight of the Tuluá prison, with an unfortunate result,” lamented the general. In his opinion, “by setting the mats on fire” the inmates did not “measure the consequences” of what could happen. Among the injured, all of them transferred to hospitals in the region, there are several in a critical situation, six of them are policemen who collaborated in the evacuation. The fire caused numerous relatives of the inmates to gather at the gates of the prison, who experienced moments of anguish and panic as they were unaware of what was happening inside. The Police established a security cordon to prevent anyone from entering the prison.
Relatives of the prisoners receive the first reports on the situation of the prisoners /
From Portugal, where he is on a work trip, the still Colombian president, Iván Duque, has expressed his solidarity with the families of the victims and reported that he has given the “appropriate orders to investigate and clarify this terrible situation.” His next successor, the leftist Gustavo Petro, has indicated on social networks that the incident “forces a complete rethinking of prison policy in the face of the humanization of prison and the dignity of the prisoner.” One of the sections of his program is precisely to improve the living conditions of inmates, since Colombia suffers from a serious problem of overcrowding in its prisons. With almost 98,000 inmates, the prison population exceeds the capacity of the prison network by 18% due to a lack of budget and poor government management for years. Experts warn that this circumstance has led to the proliferation of mafias and intramural violence.
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