VALENCIA, Venezuela: Rioting and a fire in the cells of a Venezuelan police station in the central city of Valencia killed 68 people on Wednesday, according to the government and witnesses.
Families hoping for news outside the police station were dispersed with tear gas and authorities did not give information until late into the evening.
“The State Prosecutor’s Office guarantees to deepen investigations to immediately clarify what happened in these painful events that have left dozens of Venezuelan families in mourning,” said Chief Prosecutor Tarek William Saab on Twitter.
Carlos Nieto, head of Una Ventana a la Libertad (A Window on Freedom), said that "some burned to death and others asphyxiated" after setting fire to mattresses and stealing a guard's gun in an attempt to break out.
The dead included two women thought to have been visiting the jail at the time of the incident, Nieto said.
(Video YouTube/TRT World)
Venezuelan prisons are notoriously overcrowded and filled with weapons and drugs. Riots leaving dozens dead are not uncommon.
Because of the lack of space in penitentiaries, convicts are often sent to police holding cells like the ones in Carabobo, meant to be used as temporary pens for suspects facing charges or court hearings, where detainees are supposed to spend a maximum of 48 hours.
Nieto's association estimated that the temporary detention centers were overfilled by five times their capacity.
"All the police stations in Venezuela are facing similar or worse conditions of overcrowding, lack of food and disease," he said.
The association said 65 people died last year in the holding cells due to violence, malnutrition or tuberculosis.
Two weeks ago, 58 detainees escaped holding cells on Margarita Island, a favored tourist spot, when a hole opened up in their facility's wall. They were all soon recaptured.
In August 2017, a riot left 37 dead and 14 wounded in police cells in the southern state of Amazonas, while an April 2017 clash between rival gangs left 12 dead and 11 injured in the Puente Ayala prison in the eastern city of Barcelona.
A month before that, the remains of 14 people were found in a mass grave in the General Penitentiary of Venezuela, in San Juan de Los Morros in the country's center.
State official Jesus Santander said the state of Carabobo was in mourning after the incident in the city of Valencia.
"Forensic doctors are determining the number of fatalities," Santander said. A policeman was shot in the leg and was in a stable condition and firefighters had extinguished the flames, he said.
Many Venezuelan prisons are lawless and have been for decades. Prisoners often openly wield machine guns and grenades, use drugs and leave guards powerless.
"There are people who are inside those dungeons (...) and the authorities do not know they exist because they do not dare to enter," said Humberto Prado, a local prisons rights activist.
Paramedics help a relative of inmates held at the General Command of the Carabobo Police, who fainted, outside the prison, where a fire occurred in the cells area, according to local media, in Valencia, Venezuela on Wednesday. (Reuters photo)