Dozens of inmates burn to death in Honduras jail riot

A riot at a women's prison in Honduras has killed at least 41 women, most of them burned to death, in violence linked to gang activity, authorities said.

Most victims on Tuesday were burned, but there also were reports of inmates shot at the prison in Tamara, about 48 kilometres northwest of the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, said Yuri Mora, the spokesperson for Honduras’ national police investigation agency.

At least seven female inmates were being treated at a Tegucigalpa hospital for gunshot and knife wounds, employees there said.

Julissa Villanueva, the head of the country's prison system, suggested the riot started because of recent attempts by authorities to crack down on illicit activity inside prisons and called Tuesday's violence a result of "the actions we are taking against organised crime."

"We will not back down," Villanueva said in a televised address after the riot.

According to Delma Ordonez, who represents family members of the inmates, members of a gang had entered the cell of a rival group and set it on fire.

That part of the prison was "completely destroyed," she told media.

The penitentiary held some 900 inmates, said Ordonez.

Deadly prison incidents

Gangs often wield broad control inside the country's prisons, where inmates often set their own rules and sell prohibited goods.

The riot appears to be the worst tragedy at a female detention centre in the region since 2017, when girls at a shelter for troubled youths in Guatemala set fire to mattresses to protest rapes and other mistreatment at the badly overcrowded institution.

The ensuing smoke and fire killed 41 girls.

The worst prison disaster in a century also occurred in Honduras, in 2012 at the Comayagua penitentiary, where 361 inmates died in a fire possibly caused by a match, cigarette or some other open flame.

In 2019, a deadly prison gang fight resulted in 18 inmate deaths.