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| Brazil officials try to ID riot victims |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 06/07/2004 |
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Authorities struggled last Wednesday to identify the bodies and remains of 30 inmates killed - and in some cases beheaded and dismembered - during a brutal three-day uprising at a Rio de Janeiro prison. Officials said 19 bodies at the Benfica detention center had been identified, but accounting for all the dead had been made difficult because body parts were strewn about the prison. Officials lowered the death toll to 31 from 38 as they identified bodies, that also included a prison officer. The violence ended last Monday night after officials agreed to separate members from rival gangs who had used the chaos of the uprising to settle scores. "Initial estimates of the death toll were high because of the considerable confusion at the scene," said Claudia Moraes, spokeswoman for the state's Security Secretariat. "The final figure was possible only after bringing the bodies and body parts into the morgue." "Some of the victims had their throats slit; there were arms and heads cut off; by putting together pieces of the bodies we found 30 victims," said Tiago Fontora of the Rio de Janeiro state penitentiary authority. Sixteen prisoners were hospitalized with serious injuries. Relatives and friends of the approximately 900 inmates at the detention center in Benfica, a poor neighborhood in Rio's north side, were still waiting for an official list of those still alive. The rebellion was Brazil's bloodiest since the 1992 police massacre at the now-defunct Carindiru prison where 111 inmates died. |
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