A clash between rival gangs left at least 41 people dead on Tuesday (June 20th) at a women's prison near the Honduran capital, police said.
At least "41 people died" in the women's prison 25 km north of the capital Tegucigalpa, police spokesman Edgardo Barahona told AFP.
Deputy Security Minister Julissa Villanueva announced on Twitter an "emergency situation", denouncing "acts of vandalism".
Burning cells
The president of the detainees' families, Delma Ordoñez, told local media that members of a women's group set fire to a rival gang's cell.
The building where the victims perished "is completely destroyed, it has been reduced to ashes," she said, adding that the prison had some 900 women.
Many members of the police and army were deployed outside the prison where relatives of detainees were also crowding in search of information, an AFP journalist found.
With AFP
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