National Post (National Edition)
Prison wars in Brazil escalate with killings
RIO DE JANEIRO •Thirtythree inmates were slain Friday in northern Brazil, some with their hearts and intestines ripped out, during a prison killing spree led by the country’s largest gang, authorities said.
The bloodshed comes just days after 60 inmates were killed during rioting at two prisons in a neighbouring state and it increases fears that violence could spread, including to the streets of major cities, as gangs vie for influence and territory both inside prisons and in slums where trafficking operations are often based.
It’s also becoming a flashpoint for the government of President Michel Temer, whose administration is already struggling with an economic crisis and mounting corruption allegations. Authorities of the state of Roraima, on the border with Venezuela, said they requested help from Brazil’s federal government more than once to deal with its prison crisis, but no support was sent.
“This is a national crisis,” said Uziel Castro, security secretary of the state where the latest massacre happened.
Castro said the slaying spree began around 2:30 a.m. Friday at the Agricultural Penitentiary of Monte Cristo in the town of Boa Vista. He said it was led by members of Sao Paulo-based First Command, Brazil’s biggest criminal organization.
He said First Command members did not attack a rival gang, but rather other prisoners, for motives that were not yet clear.
“There was no confrontation, this was a killing spree,” said Castro. “It was barbaric. Some were beheaded, others had their hearts or intestines ripped out.” Castro said firearms were not involved, and none of the 1,500 inmates in the prison built for about 700 had escaped.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether there was a connection to the gruesome rioting earlier this week in the neighbouring state of Amazonas, which officials blamed on a gang war between the First Command and Family of the North, which fight over control of prisons and drug routes in along the borders of Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and the Guianas.
A police statement said officers, including a heavily armed riot squad, had been deployed to the prison.
The rioting Sunday and Monday in Amazonas included the country’s worst prison massacre since 1992, with half of the 56 slain at one institution beheaded and several others also dismembered. In another of the riots in the state, four prisoners died. A total of 184 inmates escaped from Amazonas prisons in the disturbances. Authorities have said that so far, only 65 had been recaptured.
In October, a riot at the Agricultural Penitentiary, the same where disturbances were reported on Friday, left 10 dead. On the same day, eight others were killed in a prison in the state of Rondonia, which borders Bolivia.