A prison riot reportedly resulted in the deaths of at least 47 people and leaving 75 injured in western Venezuela. This is a nation where NGOs and inmates' families regularly denounce unsanitary conditions, violence and overcrowding behind bars. The Venezuelan Prison Observatory (OVP) rights group provided the figures. The incident took place at the Los Llanos prison center in Guanare.?
Parliamentary Deputy Maria Beatriz Martinez said: "At the moment we have been able to confirm 47 dead and 75 wounded."
Martinez and the NGO said those who died were all prisoners.?
According to an army report, the disruption started when inmates began destroying "the security fences around the perimeter" in a "massive escape attempt." It also said the prison's director was wounded. Martinez refuted that account, stating the uprising was staged by a group of prisoners "because they did not have access to food."?
OVP claims the guards opened fire following the incident at the facility, which has a capacity for 750 inmates but houses some 2,500. With the coronavirus pandemic raging, visits from family and friends -- who often bring food and medicine to inmates -- have been greatly reduced.?
"What is happening right now is because of the guards. They don't transfer the food" brought by families to the inmates, Yessica Jimenez, who knows someone inside the prison, told AFP. The identities of those killed were verified "through the morgue, thanks to relatives who recognised the dead in photos that were shown to them on a computer," said Carolina Giron of OVP.?
She added inmates' family and friends "don't have access to the hospital." According to the organisation, 97 deaths occurred in Venezuelan prisons last year, 70 percent of which were due to diseases such as tuberculosis and a lack of medicine.?
More than 330 cases of coronavirus, including 10 deaths, have been recorded in Venezuela, but authorities say there have been no cases in the country's jails. Opposition leader Juan Guaido has refuted Venezuela's official count, accusing the government of Socialist President Nicolas Maduro of "shamelessly lying."