Honduras prison fire kills more than 350 inmates

COMAYAGUA, Honduras (Reuters) – A massive fire raged through an overcrowded prison in Honduras, killing more than 350 inmates, many of them trapped and screaming inside their cells.

Relatives of prisoners injured in a fire on Tuesday night at a prison in Comayagua, 45 miles north of the capital, wait outside Escuela hospital in Tegucigalpa yesterday. REUTERS/Stringer

It was one of the world’s worst prison fires and was apparently started by one of the inmates late on Tuesday night at the jail in Comayagua, about 75 km (45 miles) north of the capital Tegucigalpa.

By the end of it, 359 people were dead, said Danelia Ferrera, a senior official at the attorney general’s office.

“It’s a terrible scene … Our staff went into the cells and the bodies are charred, most of them are unrecognizable,” Ferrera told Reuters, adding officials would have to use dental records and DNA in many cases to identify those killed. A convict was suspected of starting the blaze, said the  governor of Comayagua province, Paola Castro.

“One inmate got in touch with me just after 11 p.m. to say another inmate had set fire to the prison in block number 6, presumably by setting fire to a mattress,” she said, noting she had met the prisoner during her social work at the prison.

Jails are stuffed full of convicts in Honduras, which is ravaged by violent street gangs, brutal drug traffickers and rampant poverty. According to the United Nations, the country has the highest murder rate in the world. Violence on the streets is mirrored by frequent riots and deadly clashes between rival gangs behind bars.

But the carnage in the Comayagua prison was shocking even by Honduran standards. Chaos erupted after the blaze took hold.

“We heard screaming from the people who caught on fire,” one prisoner told reporters, showing fingers he fractured escaping the blaze. “We had to push up the roof panels to get out.”

Injured inmates were filmed being carried out of the jail, some crawling with visible burns.

By the time Red Cross volunteer Jose Manuel Gomez arrived, all he could do for many was gather up their remains. “We’re placing them into bags in parts because when we grab them, they disintegrate,” he said.

The inferno was the third major prison fire in Honduras since 2003 with dilapidated jails packed at more than double their capacity across the Central American nation.

Worried and angry relatives surrounded the prison on Wednesday morning, at one point throwing rocks at police and trying to force their way inside the prison.

Police responded by firing shots into the air and shooting tear gas at protesters, most of whom were women.

President Porfirio Lobo said he had suspended the director of the Comayagua prison and the head of the national prison system to ensure a thorough investigation.