Inmates beheaded in 2nd prison massacre in days

Clashes between drug gangs on Thursday claimed at least 17 lives in the second deadly riot in an Ecuadoran prison in days, with rampaging inmates beheading and maiming rivals, officials in the violence-wracked country said.

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The fighting in the troubled coastal city of Esmeraldas, near the Colombian border, added to a toll of about 500 inmates massacred in Ecuador since 2021.

Images shared on social media and verified by AFP show dead men sprawled on the ground with bare, bloodstained torsos. At least two of them were decapitated, and many had stab wounds.

Dozens of worried family members gathered outside the prison for news of their loved ones Thursday as the SNAI prison authority raised the official toll from 10 in the morning to 17 by lunchtime.

"There are women here who have been asking after their relatives since 5.30am," an anguished woman, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

She herself rushed to the prison after receiving a call from people who live nearby and told her "they heard the shooting, they heard the screams".