Coronavirus Causes Prison Riots and Mass Escape Attempts in Latin America

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – There are hardly any prisons where measures to protect the detainees are sufficient. Overcrowding is up to 500 percent, which makes it impossible to “keep a distance” between prisoners.

On March 28th, the first Coronavirus case was confirmed in a prisoner in the Chilean penitentiary Puente Alto. This triggered a riot the following day. I

Puente Altqa prison director José Provoste announced: “The positive test led to chaos, from which, however, no serious riot evolved. We called in the fire fighters when the prisoners tried to set fires”. The riot was ultimately ended with the use of tear gas.

Only a week earlier, on the night of March 21st to 22nd, violent clashes broke out in the Modelo prison in Bogotá, Colombia, between prisoners and the prison authorities (INPEC), the military and the police. Twenty-three prisoners died in the clashes.

The government claimed that this was a coordinated attempt by the ELN guerrillas to escape from prison. The nationwide prison movement called for a simultaneous mass protest in 14 prisons.

There were also clashes in Mexico on March 20th, which cost the lives of three prisoners. At the Atlacholoaya Correctional Facility in the southern Mexican state of Morelos, prisoners attacked security personnel with guns and knives.

They took officers hostage to attempt their escape, ten of them were injured. A number of prisoners managed to escape and another prisoner died shortly afterwards in a hospital from a gunshot wound.

In Brazil, more than 1,300 prisoners had already escaped from prisons on March 16th. Among them were some 900 prisoners from Mirandópolis, who were in minimum security and took action against potential coronavirus infections as a reason for escaping.

They had previously criticized the restrictive measures: Visits were forbidden, but no security measures were introduced for prisoners. However, these prisoners leave the cells to work off-site and can thus carry the virus into the prison.

According to official sources, another 400 prisoners fled from Mongaguá and around 30 from Taubaté prisons in Brazil.