Ten killed in prison gangs clash

POLICE have entered two prisons where fighting between rival gangs left at least 10 inmates dead in northern Brazil.

The riot started in the Alcacuz and Rogerio Coutinho detention facilities outside the city of Natal on Saturday, said the office in charge of state penitentiaries.

Police entered the adjacent prisons on Sunday morning.

Authorities have said they expect the death toll from the violence to rise.

The riot in the state of Rio Grande do Norte was the latest in a series of massacres in the country’s that have killed more than 100.

The last rebellion in Alcacuz prison, which should house 620 inmates but has 1,083, was in November 2015 when a tunnel was discovered in one pavilion.

The recent outbreak of prison violence in Brazil began on January 1-2 when 56 inmates were killed in the northern state of Amazonas.

The Family Of The North gang targeted members of Brazil’s most powerful criminal gang, First Command, in a clash over control of drugtrafficking routes in northern states.

Many of the prisoners were beheaded dismembered.

Then 33 more were killed, many with their hearts and intestines ripped out, in the neighbouring state of Roraima on January 6.

Experts say First Command, known by the Portuguese acronym PCC, is exploiting overcrowding and squalid conditions in Brazil’s penitentiaries to expand its reach across the national prison system.

The gang runs drugtrafficking operations both inside and outside prisons even though many of its leaders are in maximum security penitentiaries in Sao Paulo state. and