Over 100 inmates killed in wave of Brazilian prison massacres
By
Miguel Andrade
10 January 2017
The new year has been marked by a series of prison riots in Brazil’s far north, with at least 102 inmates killed by other prisoners in highly coordinated acts. The first massacre on January 2 involved a 17-hour prison riot in the city of Manaus, capital of the Amazonas state, and ended with the slaughter of 56 inmates in a gang battle.
At least 27 of the victims were decapitated by riot leaders. The police reportedly kept away from ending the riots until prisoners had negotiated a settlement, ostensibly in order to avoid another tragedy like the infamous Carandiru riot in which São Paulo’s Military Police slaughtered 111 inmates in 1992.
Another riot at the nearby Purarequara Prisonal Unit (UPP) left four dead. More than 200 prisoners are thought to have escaped from both complexes in a simultaneous prison break.
On January 4 a third riot resulted in two deaths by firearm during fights between inmates. Later, on early Friday, January 6, a fourth inmate riot resulted in the murder of another 33 inmates in the Monte Cristo Rural Penitentiary, in Boa Vista, the capital of the neighboring Roraima state.
A fifth riot left four dead in the Manaus prison, which had received prisoners who survived the January 2 massacre and were believed to have been involved in the first attack.
The wave of massacres exposes the criminal character of the Brazilian government’s war on drugs, which is aimed at the country’s overwhelmingly impoverished population. The government has sought to cover up the true cause of the massacres: illegal and inhumane conditions for inmates in the country’s overcrowded prison system.
The Raimundo Vidal Pessoa jail, where the third massacre took place,…