Clashes in four Brazil prisons leave 42 dead
Updated 08:31, 28-May-2019
CGTN
["china"]
At least 42 inmates were killed in four prisons in northern Brazil on Monday, authorities said, a day after violence in one of the jails left 15 people dead. 
The victims appeared to have been killed by "asphyxiation," the Amazonas state government said in a statement, after the latest deadly clashes to rock the country's severely overpopulated and violent prison system.  
At least 27 of the victims were found in the Antonio Trindade Penal Institute near Manaus, the capital of Amazonas, where all four prisons are located. The federal government has dispatched reinforcements to boost security. 
An investigation launched into Sunday's mass killing at the Anisio Jobim Penal Complex has been widened to include Monday's deaths. 
Four of those killed in the latest violence were found at the Anisio Jobim jail, which was also the scene of a prison rebellion that lasted almost 20 hours and left 56 people dead in January 2017. 
Another five were killed at the Provisional Detention Center for Men, and six died at the Puraquequara Prison Unit.  
Sunday's clashes at the Anisio Jobim Penal Complex broke out around 11:00 a.m. local time (15:00 GMT) during visiting hours at the facility. 
"It was a fight between the inmates. There had never been deaths during the visits," Colonel Marcos Vinicius Almeida told reporters. Some of the inmates were stabbed with sharpened toothbrushes, Almeida said.
Source(s): AFP