A group of prisoners belonging to a criminal gang took several police officers hostage, all of whom were released after fifteen hours
Between Tuesday and Wednesday there was a major riot in the Tacumbú prison in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay. A group of prisoners belonging to the criminal gang Clan Rotela clashed with police and took 22 prison officers, the largest in the country, hostage before releasing them after 15 hours. Thanks to an agreement with the government, the situation was resolved: “We have restored order,” Paraguay President Santiago Peña said in a press conference.
The riot began on Tuesday evening. Some inmates had set fire to several mattresses at the entrance to the prison to block police access, while others climbed to the roof and from there began throwing stones at police in riot gear stationed at the edge of the building. Meanwhile, prison director Luis Esquivel told a local radio that he had been taken hostage along with 21 police officers (the number was confirmed by the country’s authorities after their release). Two officers were injured in clashes between police and prisoners.
Esquivel said inmates made three demands: a guarantee that police would not storm the prison, that there would be no repercussions for the riot and that new inmates would be admitted to the prison. The prison houses nearly 3,000 people and is already severely overcrowded, but according to local media, the Rotela clan hopes that sending new inmates affiliated with the organization will increase its influence.
The gang takes its name from the brothers Óscar and Armando Javier Rotela, who founded it: they control a large part of the drug trade in Paraguay and even controlled the prison before the uprising. On October 2 last year, Justice Minister Ángel Barchini announced that he wanted to bring the prison back under police control: according to some, this is one of the possible reasons for the clashes.
It is currently unclear what type of agreement resolved the revolt. Peña acknowledged that the Tacumbú prison is overcrowded, saying only 1,100 inmates are there because they have been convicted, while about 1,600 are there awaiting trial. It is a situation that he described as “complex” and for which it is necessary to “find equally complex solutions”. In any case, the President made it clear that “the inadequacy of prison officials cannot be used as an excuse to give in to the demands of people deprived of their liberty.”
Paraguay is not the only Latin American country to have problems with its prison system. Ecuador’s prisons often experience violent clashes between rival gangs or between inmates and law enforcement. In Venezuela, 11,000 police and soldiers were deployed to regain control of a prison that had been controlled for years by prisoners who had built a swimming pool, a zoo and a nightclub inside it.
– Also read: The Venezuelan prison has been run by a criminal group for years
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