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26 dead as gangs behead inmates in Brazilian prison massacre

Officials said members of two drug gangs clashed violently after coming out of different parts of the prison.

THE LATEST IN a string of brutal prison massacres involving suspected gang members in Brazil has resulted in the deaths of 26 inmates, most of whom were beheaded, officials said yesterday.

The bloodbath erupted Saturday night in the overcrowded Alcacuz prison in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte.

Similar violence at other jails in Brazil left around 100 inmates dead in early January.

“Twenty-six deaths have been verified,” the state’s public safety manager, Caio Bezerra, told a news conference. The authorities had earlier estimated around 30 were killed as they gathered bodies and body parts, he said.

Security forces stormed the prison at dawn and restored order after 14 hours of violence, the local authorities said.

Clashes

Officials said members of two drug gangs clashed violently after coming out of different parts of the prison.

One family member said the authorities did not seem to be doing everything they could — even after she warned the prison director.

“The (prison) director even said he could not do anything” when told an uprising was looming, said Adriana Feliz, the sister an inmate.

“I told the director they were going to go in and kill everyone in Pavillion 4,” she added.

So why didn’t they do anything?

President Michel Temer said on Twitter that the federal government stood ready to provide “all assistance necessary.”

Separately, officials in the southern state of Parana said 28 prisoners escaped from a jail in the city of Curitiba after inmates blew up a wall and fired on police.

Prisoners armed 

At Alcacuz, security forces surrounded the prison but had to wait until first light Sunday to storm the site with armored vehicles, officials said.

Prisoners had cut off the electricity and were said to have firearms.

The prison, just outside the state capital Natal, was built for a maximum of 620 inmates but currently houses 1,083, the state justice department said.

The riot was thought to have been a clash between Brazil’s biggest drug gang, the First Capital Command (PCC), and a group allied to its main rival Red Command, Brazilian media said.

Experts say the violence is part of a war between drug gangs battling for control of one of the world’s most important cocaine markets and trafficking routes.

Drug gang war 

Violence in the first week of January left around 100 prisoners dead — many of them active gang members, the authorities said.

Many of the victims were beheaded, disemboweled or dismembered, officials said.

The biggest bloodbath, in the northwestern city of Manaus, left about 60 inmates dead. It appeared to be an orchestrated mass killing targeting members of the PCC. Dozens of inmates are still missing.

A second bout of violence in Roraima state killed 33.

It was thought to be a backlash by the PCC’s rivals for its violent expansion.

The states of northern Brazil, which border top cocaine producers Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, are battle zones in the drug trade.

Prisons there — and throughout Brazil — are often under the de facto control of drug gangs, whose turf wars on the outside play out among inmates.

Overcrowding 

Overcrowding exacerbates the problem, activists say.

Brazil’s inmate population has been swollen by efforts to crack down on the drug trade.

The country’s jails hold 622,000 inmates, mostly young black men, according to a 2014 justice ministry report. It found that 50 percent more capacity was needed.

Brazil has the world’s fourth-largest prison population after the United States, China and Russia, according to the report.

Temer is under pressure over the issue.

After the two riots earlier this month, he announced the federal government would spend $250 million to build new prisons.

But human rights activists and experts questioned whether more prisons are the answer.

Brazil needs “medium- and long-term policies to reduce the vulnerability of certain social groups, to prioritize prevention rather than repression,” sociologist Camila Nunes of the Federal University of ABC in Sao Paulo told AFP after the previous prison massacres.

- © AFP 2017.

Read: 60 killed in Brazil prison riot with many beheaded and guards held hostage while inmates escaped>

Read: Seven beheaded and six burned to death as 25 prisoners killed in Brazilian prison riot>

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    Mute Maurice
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    Apr 24th 2025, 2:54 PM

    The Mosque incident in Dublin has managed for the most part to have stayed out of mainstream media.
    There’s trouble brewing from within paradise.

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    Mute thomas molloy
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    Apr 24th 2025, 3:29 PM

    @Maurice: If it was a Catholic organisation it would be given 160 legs. (€). They have magnified bad behaviour by 2% of sick evil men to damage 100% of Catholic clergy. They are scared to deal with Muslims.

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    Mute Jack Hayes
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    Apr 24th 2025, 3:40 PM

    @Maurice: I heard about it all on national broadcasting media. Seems mainstream to me. I wouldn’t view the internal issues of the Islamic Cultural Centre necessarily mainstream or broad-reaching anyway.

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    Mute Pelagius Asturias
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    Apr 24th 2025, 6:36 PM

    @Maurice: I hear Clonskeagh mosque has closed ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. A designated terrorist organisation

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    Mute Pelagius Asturias
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    Apr 24th 2025, 10:01 PM

    @Pelagius Asturias: *close

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    Mute Brian Hunt
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    Apr 24th 2025, 11:51 PM

    @Pelagius Asturias: You heard correctly!

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    Mute Be Lucky
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    Apr 24th 2025, 2:37 PM

    Why is Palestine now not covered people are still being slaughtered.

    And burning down of churches in Ireland over the past week.

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    Mute honey badger
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    Apr 24th 2025, 3:08 PM

    @Be Lucky: One article about two nuclear armed neighbours with a long history of deep animosity (possibly posturing for war), and you’re here whingeing about palestine and churches. One article. Ffs.

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    Mute Truth Truth
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    Apr 24th 2025, 4:52 PM

    @Be Lucky: always the same field, always the same seed. Antisemitism and hatred. Not all of Ireland needs to plant the same seed.

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    Mute Pelagius Asturias
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    Apr 24th 2025, 6:34 PM

    @Be Lucky: To hell with the Palestinian and Israeli hate fest, They’re as bad as each other. Why don’t ye head on over there and do something about it.

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    Mute Pete Hickey
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    Apr 24th 2025, 2:30 PM

    Muslims, nothing but trouble

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    Mute Wendy Arbour aka Luas Vuitton - Dub Drag Queen
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    Apr 24th 2025, 2:43 PM

    @Pete Hickey: Spent this week’s disability benefit on fags and cans already, have we? Get a life. And a job.

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    Mute Thesaltyurchin
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    Apr 24th 2025, 3:24 PM

    @Pete Hickey: Zoom out. People avoiding logic and reason. You know it well. Many here do.

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    Mute Jack Hayes
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    Apr 24th 2025, 3:40 PM

    @Pete Hickey: Bigots also.

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    Mute Pelagius Asturias
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    Apr 24th 2025, 10:06 PM

    @Jack Hayes: Durka Durka Muhammad Jihad

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    Mute Shane Gallagher
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    Apr 25th 2025, 6:54 PM

    @Wendy Arbour aka Luas Vuitton – Dub Drag Queen: How much do drag queens earn? Are you coming to grips with the truth that you’re really a man not a woman! Common sense has prevailed.

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    Mute Shane Gallagher
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    Apr 25th 2025, 7:05 PM

    @Wendy Arbour aka Luas Vuitton – Dub Drag Queen: Get to grips with the fact you’re a man not a woman (reality).

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    Mute Tom L
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    Apr 24th 2025, 2:37 PM

    I wonder how many new Irish will be arguing with other over this

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    Mute Wendy Arbour aka Luas Vuitton - Dub Drag Queen
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    Apr 24th 2025, 2:47 PM

    @Tom L: you don’t know any Irish people, do you?

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    Mute Tom L
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    Apr 24th 2025, 3:36 PM

    @Wendy Arbour aka Luas Vuitton – Dub Drag Queen: No such thing anymore, they’re Wokies now and you are the spokesman eh

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    Mute Jack Hayes
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    Apr 24th 2025, 3:42 PM

    @Tom L: ‘Wokies’. LOL What a developmentally stunted human you are.

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    Mute Mike B
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    Apr 24th 2025, 4:27 PM

    @Tom L: Rather be woke than be a fascist

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    Mute Fifi Ryan
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    Apr 24th 2025, 5:39 PM

    @Wendy Arbour aka Luas Vuitton – Dub Drag Queen: do you practice being an arrogant dosser

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    Mute Altoir
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    Apr 24th 2025, 2:52 PM

    Muslims a great bunch of lads

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    Mute Brian Hunt
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    Apr 24th 2025, 3:04 PM

    Two nuclear powers falling out with each other, what could possibly go wrong?

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    Mute Phillip Smyth
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    Apr 24th 2025, 3:39 PM

    Vance and his missus will sort that out.

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    Mute Eamon
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    Apr 24th 2025, 4:40 PM

    You know what. Keep your sordid little wars over there in Asia and eastern Europe and the middle east and don’t involve any of the rest of us peace loving people in them. I for one am sick of it all. War is hell.

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    Mute You Cant Be Serious
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    Apr 24th 2025, 9:06 PM

    @Eamon: the irony of a Leeds fan talking about peace

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    Apr 24th 2025, 9:51 PM

    @You Cant Be Serious: You can’t be serious.

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    Mute Oh Mammy
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    Apr 24th 2025, 2:58 PM

    We’re “going of the rails on a crazy train”

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    Mute Hunt Ley
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    Apr 24th 2025, 5:03 PM

    Pakistan is a rogue nation that should never have been created.

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    Mute sean weir
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    Apr 25th 2025, 9:19 AM

    @Hunt Ley: you can thank the Brits for that

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    Mute Pól Pot
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    Apr 24th 2025, 2:35 PM

    Everyone get their KI tablets ready.

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    Mute Pól Pot
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    Apr 24th 2025, 3:30 PM

    And brine curing your household pets.

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    Mute Pol O Nuanain
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    Apr 24th 2025, 5:30 PM

    Well im up for India..Pakkkkkis are dirt..

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    Mute Shane Gallagher
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    Apr 25th 2025, 7:02 PM

    @Pol O Nuanain: We have both in Ireland. They are well used to poverty, mayhem and overpopulation. Something that will slowly but surely make its way into Irish society.

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