In Honduras, more than forty dead during a clash in a women’s prison

A clash between rival gangs left at least 41 people dead on Tuesday (June 20th), according to an initial estimate, in a women’s prison located 25 kilometers north of the capital Tegucigalpa, said police spokesman Edgardo Barahona.

Deputy Security Minister Julissa Villanueva described on Twitter a ” emergency situation “denouncing “acts of vandalism”.

The president of the detainees’ families, Delma Ordoñez, told local media that members of a women’s group had set fire to the cell of a rival gang.

Building “burned down”

The building where the victims perished “is completely destroyed, it has been reduced to ashes”she assured, adding that the prison had some nine hundred women.

Many members of the police and the army were deployed around the prison where relatives of the detainees also crowded in search of information, noted a journalist from Agence France-Presse.