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MANAUS: An uprising of an inmate in a Brazilian prison fueled by fear of a coronavirus outbreak saw seven prison guards briefly taken hostage on Saturday (May 2) in Manaus, a state capital in the Amazon jungle, where public services have been overwhelmed by the pandemic.
Prison authorities did not report deaths and said 10 guards and five inmates suffered noncritical injuries in the rebellion, which they described as a distraction from a frustrated escape attempt.
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Relatives of inmates who gathered outside the compound said the prisoners rebelled due to poor conditions, including lack of food, electricity and medical care. Some said that the spread of the coronavirus in Manaus made their concerns more urgent.
Authorities did not respond to questions about fears of the spread of the coronavirus in prison. Two other prisons in the same state of Amazonas have confirmed cases of the virus, according to local prison authorities.
Prisoners in several Latin American nations have rebelled during the pandemic, amid fears that the virus will sweep through the region’s notoriously underfunded and overcrowded prisons. In late April, inmates in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires climbed onto the roof of a prison and set mattresses on fire, saying they refused to die while locked up. Nine inmates died in a riot at a prison in Peru earlier this week.
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The violence at Brazil’s Puraquequara Penitentiary came as the coronavirus outbreak overwhelms public services in Manaus, which is burying victims in mass graves and warning of an impending casket shortage.
Globonews television reported that Brazil’s national prison chaplaincy sent a formal complaint to the public defender’s office in Manaus alleging that up to 300 inmates at the prison were ill, some with symptoms consistent with the coronavirus. According to the report, authorities denied that there were cases of coronaviruses inside the prison.
The chaplaincy, which is linked to the Catholic Church in Brazil, and state prison officials did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment on Saturday night.
The defender’s office said it visited the prison in late March and that the chaplain’s complaint about the coronavirus “was not confirmed.” However, he said the possibility of the coronavirus spreading within the prison population is a concern, and he is working to bring vulnerable prisoners to house arrest where possible.
Violence abounds in Brazil’s prisons, which are often controlled by organized crime. Human rights groups call medieval conditions, with food shortages and cells so full that prisoners sometimes do not have room to lie down.
In January 2017, nearly 150 prisoners were killed while rival gangs were fighting each other in various prisons in the north and northeast of Brazil. In a particularly violent incident in Manaus, 57 inmates were killed, some of whom were beheaded and thrown onto the prison walls.
Last year, more than 50 inmates were strangled or stabbed as rival gangs fought each other in four separate prisons in Manaus.
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