Prison Riots: Seven Police Officers Killed in Mexico

At least seven police personnel were killed on Sunday trying to stop riot at a prison in Mexico, said the authorities.

According to the authorities the latest outburst of deadly violence in the country’s jails.

Police were trying to restore order at the La Toma prison in Veracruz state, but “were driven back by inmates who had seized tools from the carpentry workshop” and were using them as weapons, the state government said.It described some of the prisoners as highly dangerous.

The office of Mexico’s human rights ombudsman acknowledged the problem in its 2017 report on the country’s prisons. It also found the country’s jails suffer from overcrowding, poor conditions and violence.

Deadly prison riots are a major problem across much of Latin America.Last Wednesday 68 people died in a fire during a riot in a Venezuelan detention facility. Two of the dead were women visitors.