Salvadoran prison riot death toll rises to 21

EL SALVADOR: A Salvadoran prison was under a state of emergency Sunday as the death toll from a bloody riot rose to 21 inmates.

More than 2,000 police, soldiers and security guards were sent into the prison Saturday and more than 200 prisoners were transferred to other jails as officials regained control of the maximum-security facility in Apanteos, 70 kilometers (40 miles) west of San Salvador. No escapes were reported.

Alberto Uribe, a spokesman for the country's prison system, said Sunday that officials had searched the entire prison and found 21 dead inmates, one more than was reported on Saturday. The riot began late Friday when members of the Mara 18 gang seized a guard and refused to enter their cell block. They then began tearing down the prison's flimsy interior walls to reach other inmates.

Deputy police director Jose Tobar told El Diario de Hoy newspaper that the gang members appeared to have planned the riot to kill certain prisoners.

All of the deaths occurred late Friday or early Saturday, when the guards had fled the prison and battles raged between hundreds of prisoners.

"We found destroyed walls, knives, homemade weapons and disfigured bodies," Uribe said of the scene uncovered by police.

Police and soldiers surrounded the prison on Sunday, and visits had been suspended. Worried family members gathered outside the prison, hoping for information on what was happening inside.

Prisons director Roberto Villanova said the prison will be under a state of emergency for 15 days and that more prisoners will be transferred to try to avoid another uprising. Built to hold 1,800 inmates, the facility houses more than 3,000, many considered to be the most dangerous in the country.

Government human rights prosecutor Beatrice de Carrillo criticized authorities for mixing gang members and common prisoners.

"These deaths are another sign that the penitentiary system doesn't work," she said. "This is one of the ugliest massacres that we have seen in recent times."

San Salvador, Monday, AP.