Prisoners escape holding pen after jail fire

GEORGETOWN, Guyana: Police and soldiers in Guyana on Monday hunted 13 prisoners who escaped from a temporary holding facility, two weeks after one of the South American country’s maximum security prisons burned down, authorities said.

Police said the men appeared to have dug a hole under a high wall topped with barbed wire.

Four of the eight prisoners who had escaped during the July 9 fire at the Georgetown Prison have yet to be recaptured.

Many of the prison’s 1,000 inmates have been transferred to other jails, while some whose sentences were nearing completion have been released.