Authorities are working to identify the bodies at the Centro
Femenino de Adaptacion Social, a 900-person women's penitentiary
around 20 kilometers (12 miles) from capital city Tegucigalpa,
Yuri Mora, spokesperson for the public prosecutor's office, told
Reuters.
Most of those killed were burned to death, while others were
shot, Mora said. Another seven people were being treated at a
state hospital, said a hospital spokesperson.
President Xiomara Castro said the riot had been planned by gang
members with guards' knowledge.
"I will take drastic measures," she said on Twitter.
Castro's first move late Tuesday was to replace security
minister Ramon Antonio Sabillon with national police head
Gustavo Sanchez, shifting Sabillon to the foreign service.
More measures will be announced Wednesday, Castro's office said,
to "combat organized crime and dismantle the boycott against
security fostered from inside prisons."
The riot was likely in reaction to a government crackdown in
recent months on corruption within prisons, said Julissa
Villanueva, head of the penal system.
A commission, formed earlier this year, has raided prisons to
wrest control from powerful gangs and weed out crooked security
guards.
Relatives of inmates were stationed outside the prison late
Tuesday seeking to find out about their loved ones.
"I'm looking for information about what happened to my daughter,
but they still haven't informed us," a woman who identified
herself as Ligia Rodriguez said in an interview with Honduras'
Channel 3 television station.
Honduras has a history of deadly prison incidents, with 18
inmates reportedly killed in a gang fight in a penitentiary in
2019, and more than 350 dying in a fire in 2012.
(Reporting by Gustavo Palencia; Writing by Isabel Woodford and
Kylie Madry; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Christopher Cushing)
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