Hammers and shivs used in Mexico prison riot that killed 49

A brutal fight between rival factions killed 52 inmates and injured 12 at a prison in northern Mexico on Thursday, the state governor said.

He did not say if they were accused of killing inmates, but authorities have said a guard fired a bullet found in one dead inmate.

The state government said Sunday that police took control of the prison and “put an end to the self-government that leaders of organized crime exerted with the complicity of some authorities”.

An official at the state’s human rights commission, Sylvia Puente Aguilar, said extortion, beatings and murders are common at the prison. Another woman who declined to be identified said the prisoners were handcuffed and looked like they had been beaten.

Fighting between two rival gangs – led by Jorge Ivan Hernandez Cantu, known as “El Credo”, of the Gulf cartel; and Juan Pedro Saldivar Farias, alias “El Z-27”, of the Zetas cartel – broke out around 11.30pm Wednesday night and continued until 1.30am Thursday morning when authorities regained control of the prison with the help of Mexican soldiers, marines, and federal police.

Los Zetas, founded by a group of former special forces soldiers, were originally the Gulf Cartel’s enforcement wing, but turned on their former masters in 2010, triggering a vicious war for territory which has wrought havoc across north-eastern Mexico.

Inmates armed with bats and blades brawled and ignited a fire in a packed prison in northern Mexico on Thursday, leaving 49 dead in the bloodiest jailhouse riot in years.

A deadly riot at a Mexican prison will not alter plans for Pope Francis to visit a different prison during his stay in Mexico, Vatican officials have said. Rodriguez said no inmates escaped. Five of the injured inmates were in serious condition.

“Basically this is creating the conflicts in the prisons”, Rodriguez said.

“The problem is they have people like my brother living with narcos”, said an angry relative of an inmate doing time for robbery, waiting for names of the victims at the prison gates.

Authorities were reinforcing security at other prisons and had transferred some inmates out of Topo Chico, Rodriguez told Milenio. “Nobody wants to be a guard, ” he said, because of the meager pay. Nevertheless they are housed in the prison’s overcrowded general population alongside numerous country’s most hardened killers.

Constitutional reforms in 2008 and 2011 tried to reorient Mexico’s prison system toward respect for human rights and preparing convicts to reintegrate into society, but in most of the country that has not occurred, Solis added.

But Sales admitted that “the criminals are the ones in control” of Topo Chico and that “unfortunately, this is happening in a good part of our country’s prisons”. They said that many of them have been threatened to prevent them from discussing the incident, according to The Washington Post.