Dozens are believed to have been killed during a bloody riot at a Venezuelan prison during which National Guard troops clashed with armed inmates.
Vice-president Nicolas Maduro called the violence tragic early Saturday and said the authorities had launched an investigation. He and other officials did not give a death toll from Friday's riot at Uribana prison in the central Venezuelan city of Barquisimeto.
But the newspaper Ultimas Noticias reported on its website that 54 people were killed. The television channel Globovision reported at least 50 killed and about 90 injured. Both cited Ruy Medina, the director of Central Hospital in the city.
Humberto Prado, an activist who leads the watchdog group Venezuelan Prisons Observatory, said in a statement that inmates' relatives and media accounts put the toll at 54 killed and 88 injured.
Relatives wept outside the prison during the violence, and cried outside the morgue Saturday as they waited to identify bodies.
Penitentiary Service Minister Iris Varela said Friday that the riot broke out when groups of inmates attacked National Guard troops who were attempting to carry out an inspection.
Varela said the violence had affected a number of prisoners and officials, but said the authorities would hold off until control had been re-established at the prison to confirm the toll. She said the government decided to send troops to search the prison after receiving reports of clashes between groups of inmates during the past two days.
The death toll provided by Medina rose late Friday after he had initially reported four killed and dozens injured. Ultimas Noticias reported that the victims included a Protestant pastor and a member of the National Guard, as well as inmates.
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles condemned the government's handling of the country's overcrowded and violent prisons.
"Our country's prisons are an example of the incapacity of this government and its leaders. They never solved the problem," Capriles said on his Twitter account. "How many more deaths do there have to be in the prisons for the government to acknowledge its failure and make changes?"
Prado noted in his group's statement, which was posted on Globovision's website Saturday, that in 2007 the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights had ordered the Venezuelan government to seize weapons that inmates had in their possession at Uribana prison and to take measures to avoid deaths in the facility.
The observatory called for the government to release a list with the names of the dead and wounded, as well as details about weapons seized in the search.
It also said the government should adequately train security forces to "effectively guarantee the right to life and avoid the disproportionate use of force."
The group says Uribana prison was built to hold up to 850 inmates but currently has about 1,400.
It was the latest in a series of bloody riots in the country's prisons. In April and May, a prison uprising in La Planta prison in Caracas blocked authorities from going inside for nearly three weeks. One prisoner was killed and five people were wounded, including two National Guard soldiers and three inmates.
Two months later, another riot broke out at a prison in Merida, and the Venezuelan Prisons Observatory reported 30 killed.
In August, 25 people were killed and 43 wounded when two groups of inmates fought a gunbattle inside Yare I prison south of Caracas.
In recent years, violence has worsened inside Venezuela's severely overcrowded prisons, where inmates often freely obtain weapons and drugs with the help of corrupt guards.
Venezuela currently has 33 prisons built to hold about 12,000 inmates, but officials have said the prisons' population is about 47,000.
Maduro said early Saturday that Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega Diaz and National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello were leading the investigation into the newest riot.
"The prisons have to be governed by law," Maduro said.
Chavez's government has previous pledged improvements to the prison system, but opponents and activists say the government hasn't made progress.
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