Killed at least 25 prisoners in a prison riot in Venezuela

It happened close to 2:30 pm on Sunday, when the hour was ending a visit. The inmates of the "tower of imprisonment" fought against the "workshop area" of the Yare prison I, about 70 kilometers from Caracas.The result: at least 25 prisoners dead, according to estimates of the Ministry of Corrections of Venezuela. Unofficial figures indicate that even could be more: about 35 dead and 45 wounded, according to calculations by the NGO Venezuelan Prison Observatory (OVP), which has already recorded 304 homicides within Venezuelan prisons during the first half of 2012. "There was a confrontation between two groups that are heavily armed in the prison", said on Monday morning (local time) the Minister of Corrections Iris Varela. "Members of these groups came concerned (...), spend twenty. One of the relatives of the inmates was also killed, "added the minister, through a phone call that was broadcast by Venezolana de Television. Still have not published their names and families of prisoners are still awaiting information outside the prison. The Yare prison I is the same in which Hugo Chávez was imprisoned between 1992 and 1994, after attempting a coup against the government of Carlos Andres Perez. It was built to house 750 inmates, but currently there are 3150 held there. Within a grenade can be purchased for about 5,000 bolivars (just over $ 500, the black market exchange) and an assault rifle by 25,000. Meanwhile in Uribana prison, located in the central-western Lara, 586 people who entered the prison on Sunday and visitors are still retained by the prisoners. "This is not a self-kidnapping", has told the country via telephone an inmate who is identified as "Matthew" and is a spokesman for the mutineers. According to his version, visitors will not leave jail until the authorities ensure the recovery of deferred judgment and returned to this prison to about 590 inmates who have been transferred to other prisons in recent months. Riots like this are common in Venezuelan prisons. "All criminal Venezuela are mounted on powder kegs," he told El Pais the director of the Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons, Humberto Prado. According to their calculations OVP, since it was created the Ministry of Corrections to address the problem of domestic violence, 567 prisoners have died and 1,200 have been wounded in the 33 prisons that exist in the country.Between May and July of this year have also been killed by hired managers of four prisons in Venezuela.