A brawl among inmates at a maximum security prison in Guatemala has left 17 dead, including three who have been decapitated.
Troops and police officers surrounded the Granja Penal Canada prison, which holds 3,100 inmates, after violence broke out.
The violence was triggered during a prison yard football game, with tensions between general prisoners and gang members spilling over, police say.
It happened during visiting hours, sending wives and girlfriends running, some with children.
The death toll from the fighting increased from 16 to 17 after one inmate died in a state hospital from injuries, an official from the district attorney’s office said.
Local media have reported that three inmates were decapitated.
After police went inside to round up prisoners and search for reported firearms, groups of inmates were seen being made to stand or sit on the grounds as officers monitored them, batons in hand.
More than 2,000 police were deployed at the prison, backed by dozens of soldiers and an armored vehicle. The facility is circled by three security fences, one of them electrified.
‘You could hear shooting all around, and I ran out with three of my children, which is why I had to go back to get the other one,’ one visitor, Heidy Solares, who came with four children told AFP. She didn’t know what happened to her incarcerated husband, Estaban.
Read More: Seventeen killed in Guatemala prison fight: official
