At least 32 inmates died in a prison riot and subsequent fire on Sunday, Mother's Day, that officials said was one of the most tragic in Argentine history.
Dozens of family members, especially mothers who had planned to visit their sons on Sunday, instead wept at the entrance to the prison, where they tried in desperation to enter by breaking the guards' cordon.
Five inmates remained hospitalized following the melee late on Saturday, plus the director of the facility, who sustained serious head injuries during the brawl, according to Buenos Aires state Justice Minister Eduardo Di Rocco.
PHOTO: EPA
Inmates suffocated from inhaling carbon monoxide after prisoners in Pavilion 16 set clothing and mattresses on fire overnight on Saturday.
Nine of the 32 bodies have not been identified, said Di Rocco at the prison in Magdalena, some 120km southeast of the capital.
He said that the riot had not been triggered by the director's refusal to lengthen visiting hours on Mother's Day and said the riot was instead "a fight among prisoners."
The official version of events differs from that of family members, who said that the protest began after inmates requested longer Mother's Day visiting hours.
"No one was killed in the rioting. The 32 died from inhaling carbon monoxide," he said.
Reporters asked if any of the inmates had died because they were locked in and could not escape.
"That is being investigated," he said.
Judicial investigators were recovering evidence to establish the facts, he said.
Pavilion 16 is a large room housing 60 inmates who posed no behavior problems, and so had no individual cells.
The prison was until a few years ago a military brig and was remodeled for 3,000 prisoners.
Early on Sunday, authorities re-took control of the prison.
With 32 deaths, the Magdalena riot became one of the worst ever in Argentina's prisons.
The bloodiest was in the port city of Villa Devoto in March 1978, when 61 persons died.
In another, in May 1990, at Olmos penitentiary, Buenos Aires state, 33 died.
So far this year, 14 prisoners died and several were badly wounded in the Coronda penitentiary in Santa Fe state. Separately, in a prison in the San Martin section of Cordoba, a riot killed eight persons and left 35 wounded earlier this year.
Human-rights groups have condemned the poor conditions in which the prison population lives in different prisons in the country. The human-rights monitors have pointed out especially problems of overcrowding and ill treatment of the inmates.
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