Dozens of inmates have escaped from a prison in northern Mexico after gunmen, suspected to be members of a drug cartel, opened fire on the facility. The men arrived outside the Chihuahua state prison in armored vehicles and began firing on the guards. Ten were killed, along with four prisoners, during the audacious and brutal attack in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. Police say some 24 inmates escaped.
Fighting within the prison, where inmates from differing criminal bands and drug cartels are housed in separate cellblocks, also left thirteen people injured. Four of them are being treated in hospital, prison authorities said. Outside, relatives gathered, hugging each other and crying as they waited for news. The army and the National Guard have been called in to support local authorities in the aftermath. The prison was also the site of an uprising last August in which a riot inside the jail spilled over into the streets, killing eleven people.
Chidozie Chima | September 13, 2024
