PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti – At least three prisoners were killed and several others injured during a riot on Sunday that officials said were part of a strategy by inmates to escape from the national penitentiary in the capital.
Initial reports said that two prisoners were shot dead and a third was trampled to death inside the facility.
The trouble at Haiti’s largest prison broke out after a prisoner stole a guard’s weapon in an escape attempt.
The man is alleged to have released other prisoners and they briefly took four other guards, two foreign aid workers and a prison clerk hostage.
UN peacekeepers in Port-au-Prince were called to help end the stand-off at the overcrowded prison.
A national police spokesman said that the prison was built to accommodate 400 people but was holding 1,500 inmates.
A spokesman for the UN’s force in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH said the prison authorities were unable to bring the riot under control and called for help.
“When they noticed that a riot was forming up inside the prison, they called MINUSTAH for help,” Vincenzo Pugliese told reporters.
At least 100 UN police officers were inside the jail on Sunday when the riot occurred, with seven officers being injured, Joseph Felix Badio, Justice Minister told reporters.
Haiti’s over-crowded prisons have seen trouble before.
Following the 12 January earthquake, thousands of prisoners escaped from the country’s main prison in Port-au-Prince.
A week later, at least 12 prisoners died and 40 were wounded in an escape attempt from a prison in the city of Les Cayes. (CMC)
