GUATEMALA CITY, May 9 (NNN-EFE) — At least seven people were killed and a score of others wounded in a battle among two factions of inmates at the Pavon prison farm, 25km southeast of the Guatemalan capital.
Though Vice President Jafeth Cabrera put the number of fatalities at three, EFE saw a total of seven bodies at the scene.
Gunfire continued inside the facility late Tuesday and when a reporter asked the vice president about what authorities planned to do, she said that the interior ministry was making preparations to intervene.
“They are armed,” Cabrera said of the warring inmates, adding that the security forces would enter the farm “to calm these individuals and take away the arsenal they have.”
Soldiers and members of police special forces units could be seen taking up positions around the prison farm.
Authorities of the Penitentiary System identified one of the dead inmates as Jose Luis Huberto Marquez Marroquin, 25, who had been serving time for extortion and illegal gun possession
First responders said that the injured had been taken to Roosevelt Hospital and San Juan de Dios Hospital in Guatemala City, some of them in “serious condition,” according to fire department spokesman Cecilio Chacaj.
While authorities provided no details on the confrontation, Noti7 television reported that the clash involved gangs led respectively by prisoners identified only by the nicknames El Pajon and El Simpson.
Noti7 aired footage of prison guards running as shots rang out.
Built in the 1960s to hold a thousand inmates, the Pavon prison now has 4,137 prisoners serving sentences for murder and drug trafficking, among other crimes.
One of the most notable violent incidents at Pavon occurred on June 18, 2016, when former army Capt. Byron Lima was killed while serving his 20th year behind bars for the murder of Guatemalan Bishop Juan Gerardi.
Slain along with Lima were 11 other inmates and an Argentine model, Joanna Birriel, who was visiting him in prison.
Guatemala’s 22 penitentiaries are holding 24,982 people in facilities intended to house 6,800 inmates, and more than half of those behind bars are awaiting trial. — NNN-EFE