A riot at a Honduras prison that left 41 women dead is being attributed to street gang members, officials said.
Inmates at the prison in Tamara were allegedly burned, shot and stabbed Tuesday morning by Barrio 18 members, with assistant prison commissioner Sandra Rodríguez Vargas saying the intruders “removed” guards before opening a cell block.
Street gangs planned the rampage “with the knowledge and acquiescence of security authorities,” Honduras President Xiomara Castro said. None of the guards appeared to be injured.
Authorities have not specified how the attackers managed to bring weapons inside the prison. Pistols and blades, including machetes, were said to be recovered from the scene afterward.
Friends and family members claimed the inmates had spoken about Barrio 18 before the attack.
“She told me the last time I saw her on Sunday that the [Barrio] 18 people had threatened them, that they were going to kill them if they didn’t turn over a relative,” an unnamed woman told The Associated Press of a friend incarcerated at the prison.
The riot may have been the gang’s response to local officials attempting to eradicate crime within the prison, said Julissa Villanueva, the head of Honduras’ prison system.
“We will not back down,” Villanueva said.
The riot occurred more than a decade after a fire at a Honduras prison left 361 inmates dead. In 2017, 41 people died at a Guatemala shelter after girls set mattresses on fire to protest poor treatment. Tuesday’s riot is believed to be the deadliest at a South American female detention center since that 2017 incident.