MEXICO CITY – Five people were killed in a prison riot in the northwestern Mexican port city of Mazatlan yesterday, Mexican media said, the third deadly clash inside the country’s overcrowded prisons in two months.
Police departments in Mazatlan declined to comment and Sinaloa state officials were not immediately available.
A shootout erupted in the prison early in the morning when inmates from different gangs clashed, Reforma newspaper said.
El Universal said five people were killed and others were injured in the prison, home to some 1,100 inmates.
Guns and illegal drugs are a staple in most Mexican prisons, which suffer from overcrowding and corruption and are full of drug cartel and organised crime prisoners. Some 19 inmates were killed in a prison riot in Tijuana in September, including two US citizens, and least 21 were killed in a gun battle in a prison near the US border in October. – (Reuters)