New Ecuador prison brawl leaves multiple inmates dead

Thirteen inmates have been killed and two others wounded in yet another bloody fight in a notorious Ecuadoran prison, law enforcement officials said.

"Unfortunately, central command reports 13 (inmates) dead and two injured," the South American country's prison authority (SNAI) said on Twitter on Monday.

The incident took place at the same Bellavista prison in the town of Santo Domingo de los Colorados, about 80 kilometres from Quito, where 44 inmates were killed in a bloody brawl in May.

Prison officials, aided by the military and the police, were able to regain control of the facility, SNAI said.

Some 220 inmates escaped from the prison during the May riot, but most of them have been recaptured.

READ MORE: Dozens of inmates on run after deadly Ecuador prison riot

Violence, poor conditions

Vicious prison riots are common in prisons in Ecuador, where drug gangs are vying for control of trafficking routes.

Those rivalries sometimes explode into grisly violence behind bars, with some inmates hacked to death or beheaded with machetes.

Last year, 316 prisoners died during riots in various prisons across Ecuador.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has said Ecuador's prison system is blighted by state abandonment and the absence of a comprehensive policy, as well as poor conditions for inmates.

The country's prisons house about 33,900 people and are 12.5 percent beyond maximum capacity, according to official figures.

READ MORE: Notorious Ecuadorian prison sees deadly gang violence again