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| Over 30 inmates and an officer die in jail revolt in Brazil |
| By New York Times |
| Published: 06/02/2004 |
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At least 30 inmates and one officer were killed in a three-day uprising at a jail in Rio de Janeiro, in the worst prison violence in Brazil in more than a decade, authorities said Tuesday. The revolt at the month-old Benfica detention center on the northern outskirts of Rio started Saturday. It ended Monday night after an evangelical pastor persuaded inmates to release 21 hostages in exchange for a promise from prison authorities to separate detainees belonging to rival gangs, officials said. The police, who were still securing the prison on Tuesday, said that they had found at least 15 bodies that had been beheaded and that they feared the death toll would rise. A 42-year-old officer who had been taken hostage was shot dead by inmates on Sunday when he tried to escape. At least 14 of the prison's 900 inmates escaped in the riot; on Tuesday, three of those were recaptured. The bloodshed was the worst prison violence in Brazil since 1992, when more than 100 inmates were killed by the police at São Paulo's notorious Carandiru prison, which has since been closed and partly demolished. Astirio Pereira dos Santos, the head of Rio's prison authority, said the death toll would probably have been much higher if the Rev. Marcos Pereira da Silva, a pastor who is popular among gang members and has become known for mediating prison riots, had not intervened. Uprisings and jailbreaks are common in Brazil's prison system, which is often criticized by human rights groups for overcrowding and abuse. Many prisons here are dominated by drug kingpins from rival gangs, making the penal system a frequent battleground for gang warfare. The Rio revolt came just over a month after prisoners at an overcrowded prison in the Amazon state of Rondônia killed 14 fellow inmates in a weeklong uprising. |
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