Troops go to border state after prison riot, jailbreak
MEXICO CITY/CIUDAD JUAREZ: Mexico’s defence ministry said on Tuesday it had flown 200 military personnel to the northern border city of Juarez to fight organised crime there, days after a deadly prison riot led to a manhunt for escaped convicts.
Authorities also sacked the director of the prison, from which at least 30 inmates escaped, they said on Tuesday.
State prosecutors in the border state of Chihuahua said Alejandro Alvarado, head of the Juarez prison, had been dismissed, and is also under investigation for his possible role in the jailbreak, alongside others.
On Sunday, 19 people died after gunmen attacked the prison a few kilometres south of El Paso, Texas, killing guards and inmates and triggering a mass escape that included cartel kingpin Ernesto Alfredo Pinon de la Cruz, also known as “El Neto.”
Federal authorities arrived to restore order, later finding a “VIP zone” in the state-run prison with drugs and money.
Prisoners’ relatives queued outside the prison on Tuesday, some asking to speak to authorities.
Maria Luisa Pena, an inmate’s aunt, said authorities had yet to give her information about her nephew’s situation.
“We’re worried,” she said, “We want to know what’s happening with our relatives, we want them to tell us something.”
“We’re all humans, aren’t we? We all make mistakes. Now many of us want the opportunity to know what’s happening with our relatives,” added an inmate’s wife, who was not identified.
On Monday night, Chihuahua’s government said seven people had died during subsequent police clashes as part of the hunt to find the escaped inmates. Two of the dead were police.
Sunday’s incident resulted in one of the highest death tolls from prison violence in Mexico in recent years.
Ciudad Juarez has been the scene of years of violent clashes between security forces and the rival Sinaloa and Juarez drug cartels, which have left thousands dead over the past decade.
The prison itself has seen multiple riots, including a bloody March 2009 episode that left 20 dead.