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Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo's office said the brawl on Tuesday
was gang-related, Fox channel KVVU-TV in Las Vegas reported.
The deadly melee broke out on Tuesday afternoon at the Ely State
Prison in a rural mining town some 250 miles (400 km) north of
Las Vegas. The prison, the state's only maximum security
facility, is also the site of its death row.
No corrections officers were injured in the fight, officials
said in the statement, which did not provide a cause for the
fight or say how many others may have been injured.
The nine inmates who were hospitalized were stabbed, ABC
affiliate KOLO-TV reported.
A spokesperson for the Nevada Department of Corrections did not
respond to specific questions about the fight to Reuters.
The Department of Correction's website said that visitations
were canceled indefinitely at all state prisons.
Prison officials were concerned about retaliation, CBS affiliate
KLAS-TV reported.
The Ely prison can hold 1,183 inmates and has more than 400
employee positions. Nevada currently has 60 inmates on death row
at the facility, according to the Death Penalty Information
Center.
There have been 21 deaths across all Nevada prisons this year,
according to the state's website, including two at the Ely
prison.
The prison was the site of an inmate hunger strike in 2022,
staged by dozens of prisoners who protested unsafe conditions
and inadequate food.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Leslie Adler and
Sandra Maler)
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