At least 49 inmates killed during prison melee in Mexico

Riot police with family members looking for information on their relatives.

(Image credit: Francisco Cobos/AFP/Getty Images)

last updated 12 February 2016

In Mexico, at least 49 inmates were killed during a brawl that broke out late Wednesday at an overcrowded prison.

The melee at the Topo Chico prison in Monterrey lasted for 30 to 40 minutes, and left 12 people injured, five seriously, Nuevo Leon state Gov. Jaime Rodriguez said. The inmates used bats, sticks, and blades in the riot, and set fire to a supply room. Rodriguez said the brawl stemmed from a dispute between two rival members of the Zetas drug cartel over who controlled the prison. The prison houses 3,800 inmates, double its capacity, with 100 guards, Rodriguez said. No inmates escaped, and federal police and troops were deployed to restore order.

One of the inmates was shot and killed by a guard protecting a group of women, Rodriguez told Radio Imagen. Outside the prison, family members demanded to know the fate of their relatives inside, including Ernestina Grimaldo, whose son is a prisoner. "We want to know how our relatives are doing because they are telling us that there are more than 50 dead and no authority is giving us answers," she told Agence France-Presse. Pope Francis is traveling to Mexico on Friday, and will visit another infamous prison in Ciudad Juarez.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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