At least 51 prisoners died after a fire started during a prison riot in the southwestern Colombian city of Tulua, the head of the national prisons agency said on Tuesday, one of the worst incidents of recent prison violence in the country.
"It is a tragic and disastrous event," General Tito Castellanos, director of the INPEC prison agency, told local Caracol Radio early on Tuesday. "There was a situation, apparently a riot, the prisoners lit some mattresses and a conflagration occurred."
Castellanos later confirmed a death toll of 51 people - 49 who died in the prison and two who died after being taken to hospital.
