At least 41 people have died in a Honduran women's prison, a spokesperson from the public prosecutors' office said on Tuesday after an apparent prison riot.
Authorities are working to identify the bodies at the Centro Femenino de Adaptacion Social, a 900-person women's penitentiary around 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the capital city Tegucigalpa, spokesperson Yuri Mora told Reuters, saying some had died from burns, while others had been shot.
Delma Ordonez, the president of an association for prisoners' families, told Reuters that a brawl had broken out at the prison in the early hours of Tuesday between members of rival gangs Barrio 18 and the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). Local media reported that there had been a riot.
Mora said the government could not currently confirm the details of what happened.
Images released by local media showed black smoke coming from a prison building.
Relatives of the inmates were stationed outside the prison later Tuesday seeking to find out about their loved ones.
"I'm looking for information about what happened to my daughter, but they still haven't informed us," a woman who identified herself as Ligia Rodriguez said in a television interview.
A hospital spokesperson, who asked for anonymity, said that seven people were being treated in a state hospital.
There is a history of deadly prison incidents in Honduras, with 18 inmates reportedly killed in a gang fight in a penitentiary in 2019, and over 350 dying in a fire in 2012. (Reporting by Gustavo Palencia; Writing by Isabel Woodford; Editing by Stephen Eisenhammer and Rosalba O'Brien)