Seven inmates were killed during a riot at a prison in southern Mexico when inmates resisting transfer to other prisons fought police with guns and knives, authorities said Thursday.
Four police officers and six other detainees were injured during riots in Villahermosa, the capital of the Gulf coast state of Tabasco.
State Police Chief Victor Hugo Chávez said Thursday evening that officers were met with gunfire earlier in the day when they entered the prison to transfer two dangerous inmates to a federal penitentiary.
One of the inmates, armed with a gun, held out for about three hours, protected by 20 fellow inmates, officials said.
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Chávez did not say whether police opened fire on the group, but said: “The authorities must also act to defend their own lives.”
Fires also broke out in the prison during the riots, and crowds of angry and desperate relatives gathered outside the prison, demanding information about their family members locked inside.
After regaining control of the scene a few hours later, authorities found an assault rifle, five pistols, a hand grenade, 23 machetes, 14 knives and 23 homemade knives.
They did not explain how the guns got into the prison. Mexican prisons are notorious for loose controls and corruption, so much so that in some penitentiaries gangs control their own cell blocks and extort protection money from other prisoners.
Last year, there was an attack on a state prison in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. killed 17 peopleincluding 10 guards. Twenty-five inmates escaped in the attack, which authorities say was aimed at freeing the leader of a local gang.
In 2016, a Prison riot left 49 inmates bludgeoned, beaten or burned alive. at Topo Chico prison in Mexico.
