Death tolls are rising at Bolivia prison, Palmasola, counting 31 dead and over 60 people injured following a fire brought about by a brawl last Friday.
Palmasola is the largest prison in the entirety of Bolivia and the incident is being considered as the most violent episode in all of Bolivia's history of prison fights. According to Interior Minister Carlos Romero, the violence started at around dawn, when one of the walls of a prison block was knocked off and one of the two opposing groups used propane gas tanks as flamethrowers, instantly blazing inmates' mattresses as well as the inmates themselves.
"The victims were trapped in the fire," Romero shares. According to reports and witnesses in the prison in Bolivia, it was a fight rooted from a bout for prison space and leadership Those who were running the prison admitted that there were internal factions occurring within the prison and while fights once in a while happens (with the most dangerous criminals being housed in the area), this is by far the most tragic.
The fire spread out quickly, with other inmates being forced to jump down from the second floor to save their lives. Witnesses also saw machetes, sticks and knives were being used by the conflicting parties. Others even claimed they heard gunshots, to which the authorities found gun casings but have yet to find the actual guns used.
Representative of Bolivia's independent Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, Maria Inez Galvez says she saw "bodies of burned men, some of the wounded with burned hands, others with burned faces," and continues, "We also saw a man who had burns and got up and grabbed a police officer's weapon in order to get taken to the hospital." She goes on to say that there weren't enough police to escort the wounded prisoners and take them to safety.
As for the 13-month old baby, Bolivian law states that children under 6 who don't have other relatives to care for them can be placed under the care of their incarcerated loved ones.
The Bolivia prison was regarded as a maximum security cell.
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