Colombia prison riot sparks deadly fire, kills 51 inmates

A fire in a Colombian prison killed 51 people and injured another two dozen on Tuesday morning after what the national prisons agency said had been a riot.

The incident occurred in the city of Tulua at 2 a.m. local time (0700 UTC), when prisoners allegedly set fire to their mattresses to stop police from entering part of the prison, director of the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (INPEC), Tito Castellanos, said.

"By setting mattresses alight, they had not gauged what the consequences could be and unfortunately this happened," he told Radio RCN.

More than 1,200 people are held in the prison, of whom 180 were in the section of the facility affected by the fire.

President-elect calls for prison reform

Authorities ruled out the possibility of an escape attempt, describing the incident as a riot.

"This situation was provoked by a fight that broke out between prisoners. One of the inmates set fire — he was angry, upset — to a mattress, which provoked the blaze," Justice Minister Wilson Ruiz said.

Outgoing President Ivan Duque tweeted that his "solidarity is with the families of the victims."

President-elect Gustavo Petro, who won his election earlier this month, also tweeted his sympathies but called for "a complete rethinking of prison policy."

"The Colombian state has viewed prison as a space for revenge and not for rehabilitation," he said. Overcrowding is a frequent problem in Colombia's prisons.

Families await news

Police and soldiers surrounded the prison while firefighters brought the blaze under control.

Authorities had not started taking bodies out by late morning, but a prison official read out a list of survivors to family members who were waiting outside.

The mother of one of the prisoners told Caracol television that the "INPEC won't let us in" and that she knew nothing about the fate of her son.

Another, speaking to El Tiempo newspaper, questioned the course of events as told by the prison authorities.

"It seems illogical to me that people enclosed in a building would have set mattresses alight knowing that they could have been burned," she said.

The deadly fire comes two days after four people were killed when a bullring stand collapsed in the municipality of El Espinal.