— A prison riot Wednesday killed at least 23 inmates in the northern
Mexican state of Durango, which has been the scene of increasingly
violent feuding between drug-trafficking groups during the last year.
Authorities said fighting broke out early in the
morning between inmates affiliated with rival drug-trafficking groups
who were held in the penitentiary in the state capital, also named
Durango. The clashes left an undetermined number of inmates injured.
The Durango state prosecutor,
declined in a radio interview to identify the rival cartels. But the
state has been a battleground between a trafficking group led by
The same Durango prison was the site of a riot in March that killed seven inmates.
Wednesday’s violence was the latest bloody episode
in Mexican prisons, which are notoriously overcrowded and prone to
fights and uprisings over living conditions.
Rioting in a separate prison in the Durango city of
Mexican prisons have grown more crowded and
dangerous as the government carries out a war against cartels, with
more than 67,000 drug arrests in three years. The increased
incarcerations have often created an incendiary mix by jamming members
of rival gangs inside the same prison walls.
Mexican prisons also have seen dramatic breakout attempts as drug gangs seek to rescue captured members, sometimes with success.
In May, a convoy of men dressed in what appeared to be police uniforms cruised into a prison in the northern state of
Durango is part of an important drug-trafficking corridor known as
Durango has become one of
Among the dead was
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