Scores of inmates die during prison riot in northern Brazil

At least 60 inmates have died during a prison riot in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas.

Several individuals were beheaded or dismembered, officials have said.

State public security secretary Sergio Fontes said that, in addition to the deaths, some inmates escaped, but he did not say how many.

Several prison guards were held hostage.

“This is the biggest prison massacre in our state’s history,” Mr Fontes said during a press conference.

The riot began on Sunday afternoon and lasted until yesterday morning.

Two of the biggest crime gangs of Brazil began fighting last year over control of several prisons and authorities in Amazonas believe that is the reason behind the first riot of 2017.

Mr Fontes said the inmates made few demands to end the riot, which hints at a killing spree organised by members of a local gang against those of another that is based in Sao Paulo.

The secretary said officers found a hole in a prison wall through which authorities believe weapons entered the building.

Mr Fontes confirmed many of the dead had been beheaded and Judge Luis Carlos Valois, who negotiated the end of the riot with inmates, said he saw many bodies that were quartered.

“I never saw anything like that in my life. All those bodies, the blood,” Mr Valois wrote on Facebook.

Mr Valois said that, during thenegotiations,inmatesonly asked “that we did not transfer them, made sure they were not attacked and kept their visitation”.

The riot ended after the inmates freed the last of the 12 prison staffers they had held hostage, Mr Valois said.

In another prison in Amazonas, 87 inmates escaped in the early hours of yesterday, Fonte said.

One of the inmates posted a picture on Facebook as he left the prison.

Violent fights and riots are common in Brazil’s overcrowded prison system, which has long been criticized by human rights organisations for its poor conditions.

Disturbances reported last year had authorities worried that they were the beginning of an episode of ultra-violent gang warfare as two powerful factions seek to wrest national control from the other.