A riot at Sri Lanka's Negombo prison, north of the capital Colombo, has left at least 23 people dead and more than 100 injured, authorities said, in one of the deadliest outbreaks of prison violence the country has seen in years. Some accounts put the toll as high as 26. The figures were described as provisional as the authorities worked to account for the dead and wounded.
How the violence unfolded
The clashes broke out at the prison and escalated sharply, the Associated Press reported, with the trouble reported to have started between rival groups of inmates. Officials have linked the confrontation to disputes connected to drug activity inside the overcrowded facility, though they cautioned that the precise trigger was still being established. Early tallies were lower before the toll climbed, Al Jazeera reported, as the scale of the violence became clear.
Among the dead were both inmates and prison staff, according to officials, and the injured were taken to hospitals in the area. Security forces were deployed to bring the prison back under control and some inmates were moved to other facilities.
An inquiry ordered
The government has ordered an investigation into what happened and how it was handled, Newswire reported. Officials described the events as something that should not have occurred and said those responsible would be identified.
Overcrowded prisons
The riot has renewed attention to conditions in Sri Lanka's prison system, which for years has held far more inmates than it was built for. Rights groups and officials alike have pointed to severe overcrowding, ageing facilities and the presence of drugs as sources of tension inside the country's jails. The Negombo prison, like several of Sri Lanka's main facilities, holds a mix of convicted prisoners and people held while awaiting trial, in cramped conditions that critics say make outbreaks of violence more likely and harder to contain.
