RIO DE JANEIRO/SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Jailed members of Brazil’s most powerful drug gang killed 31 inmates at a penitentiary on Friday, decapitating and cutting out the hearts of most of them, in revenge for a separate prison massacre that left 56 dead this week.

Riot police enter at the public jail in Manaus where some prisoners were relocated after a deadly prison riot in Manaus, Brazil, January 6, 2017. REUTERS/Michael Dantas

The bloodletting in the Monte Cristo prison in the Amazonian state of Roraima, carried out by members of the First Capital Command (PCC) gang, sparked fears that months of violence between criminal groups controlling Brazil’s prisons had spiraled out of control.

The PCC itself was targeted on Sunday in neighboring Amazonas state in Brazil’s worst prison slaughter in more than two decades.

In a cellphone video that circulated widely on social media, self-described PCC members are seen hacking away at bodies littering an outdoor patio inside the prison.

“You killed our brothers, didn’t you? Look here, look what is going to happen you! This is revenge for what you did to our brothers,” a PCC member is heard saying on the video as dozens of bodies lie in thick pools of blood.

One victim, bare-chested and wearing sky-blue surfer shorts, began to move on the ground. The inmate taking the video calls out to fellow gang members “We’ve got a live one!” before another gang member rushes over and cuts off the victim’s head with a white-handled barbecue knife.

State officials said the riot in Roraima’s largest prison was brought under control by elite police forces. Earlier, authorities put the death toll at 33 but by Friday evening lowered that figure to 31 dead. Violence between rival drug gangs at the same jail had already led to 10 deaths in October.

Roraima’s top security official Uziel de Castro blamed Friday’s violence at the state-run prison on the PCC. He later added that it was believed most of the inmates killed Friday were not members of the group responsible for this week’s attack on the PCC in Amazonas and indeed had no gang affiliations.

Justice Minister Alexandre Moraes insisted that the government had control over Brazil’s prison system - the fourth largest in world and home to more than 620,000 inmates.

Security experts had predicted more violence in Brazil’s gang-controlled penitentiaries in the wake of Monday’s massacre.

“It’s getting really ugly. This situation is clearly snowballing and there is nothing the government can do to stop the violence in the short term,” said Rafael Alcadipani, a public security expert at the Getulio Vargas Foundation think tank in Sao Paulo.

“We are paying the price for 50 years of total neglect of the penitentiary system.”

UNEASY ALLIANCE

In Monday’s uprising, PCC members were attacked by the North Family drug faction, which controls the Anisio Jobim penitentiary in Amazonas, according to officials. North Family is believed to dominate cocaine traffic in Amazonas from Colombia and Peru, according to authorities.

The group is allied with the Rio de Janeiro-based Red Command drug gang, Brazil’s second most powerful faction after PCC.

For more than two decades, PCC and Red Command maintained an uneasy alliance, ensuring that a steady flow of drugs and guns flowed across Brazil’s long jungle border.

But about six months ago PCC and Red Command split, as PCC moved to take control of lucrative drug routes across the border with Paraguay and become Brazil’s dominant gang.

Experts say PCC also has been moving to infiltrate areas in Red Command’s home base of Rio de Janeiro, further stoking a turf war that threatens to spill onto the streets of Brazil’s biggest cities.

Slideshow (5 Images)

Since the split, Red Command has allied itself with smaller regional gangs to confront PCC, primarily in the north and northeast of Brazil, where prison violence boiled over this week.

Alcadipani, the public security expert, said Brazil’s penitentiary system has been “self-regulated” by the gangs and that mass killings were rare until recent months because of a truce between the country’s biggest criminal factions.

“But we see that as soon as we have a gang war, these killings are inevitably going to happen because the state has no control over the prisons,” said Alcadipani.</s>At least 33 inmates have been killed in an uprising in a Brazilian prison in the northernmost region of Roraima, according to local government.

The riot at the Monte Cristo Agricultural Penitentiary in Boa Vista, which broke out at dawn, was reportedly a reaction to the prison uprising and death of around 60 people in the Amazon jungle's Manaus prison on Sunday night.

The government has been quick to blame the Roraima riot, according to daily newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, on northern rebel group the FDN (​Familia do Norte).

A group of prisoners, now back in their cells, reportedly escaped at 2.30am before slaughtering inmates in an apparent fight between supporters of opposing militant factions.

"It's the CCP (Primeiro Comando da Capital)," said one agent, quoted by Brazilian news website Jornal O Globo, who was naming the same criminal organisation that was blamed for the Manaus violence.

There were 1,500 prisoners at the scene and 15 prison officers on duty at the time, and some of the victims were decapitated, according to reports.

"It was not worse because we were able to react," added the officer.

The chaos was reportedly quelled after the Special Operations Battalion and military police intervened.

The prison massacre, confirmed by the region's Secretariat of Justice and Citizenship, is reportedly now the country's third most deadly since the 1992 Carandiru executions when 111 prisoners died.</s>Dozens Of Inmates Killed In Another Brazilian Prison Riot

At least 33 inmates have been killed in an uprising at the largest prison in the northernmost state of Brazil, according to news reports citing local officials. The violence, which occurred overnight in Roraima state, comes just five days after Brazil's deadliest prison massacre in nearly 25 years.

That violence last weekend left at least 56 prisoners dead in a penitentiary in Manaus, just south of Roraima in the massive state of Amazonas.

The killings at both prisons appear to be the work of rival drug gangs. Members of the First Capital Command, or PCC — Brazil's most powerful gang — were among the dozens killed days ago at the Anisio Jobim Penitentiary in Manaus.

Now, Reuters reports that local authorities believe the PCC is responsible for Friday's violence in Roraima. They believe it to be a retaliation against rival North Family faction, which is believed to have led the massacre in Manaus. "The Family is allied with the Rio de Janeiro-based Red Command drug gang, Brazil's second most powerful faction after the PCC," the news service writes.

Alexandre Moraes, the Brazilian justice minister, disputes the theory that it was gang retribution, however. Moraes said that based on initial information he received from the Roraima governor, there were only members of the PCC in the penitentiary. He attributes the violence instead to internal conflict within the Sao Paolo-based gang.

As NPR's Philip Reeves reported Thursday from the city of Manaus, Brazilian officials are facing questions about how prison violence has been allowed to happen on this scale.

"Rights activists say government has lost control of prisons to drug gangs who use inmates as foot soldiers," Philip reported. "Why, in the age of security cameras and X-ray machines, were there so many weapons inside the prison?"</s>At least 33 inmates were killed by their rivals at a prison in northern Brazil on Friday, days after a riot by warring gangs left dozens more dead at another prison, officials said.

The government of Roraima state said the situation at PAMC (Agricola de Monte Cristo prison) was now “under control.”

The latest violence did not appear to be an all-out riot but rather a rapid early morning attack by one group of inmates against another, lasting less than an hour, a local government spokeswoman told AFP.

Most of the killings were carried out with knives, she said. No firearms have been found inside the prison so far.

In October, 10 inmates were killed at the same prison during clashes between rival drug gangs.

The prison holds inmates from the Red Command, a powerful drug gang based in Rio de Janeiro.

It is allied with a local gang called the Family of the North.

That is the group authorities say was responsible for the grisly riot in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, where jailed gang members beheaded and mutilated 56 of their rivals in a 17-hour bloodbath Sunday and Monday.

Most of those killed in Manaus were members of a rival gang, the Sao Paulo-based First Capital Command.

The latest unrest comes a day after President Michel Temer announced the federal government would spend $250 million to build at least one prison in each of Brazil’s 26 states to deal with chronic overcrowding blamed for a string of deadly riots.

Rights activists have long condemned prison conditions in Brazil, where the justice ministry says 50 percent more capacity is needed to handle an inmate population swollen by efforts to crack down on a violent and lucrative drug trade.</s>At least 33 inmates have been killed in an uprising at the largest prison in the northernmost state of Brazil, according to news reports citing local officials. The violence, which occurred overnight in Roraima state, comes just five days after Brazil's deadliest prison massacre in nearly 25 years.

That violence last weekend left at least 56 prisoners dead in a penitentiary in Manaus, just south of Roraima in the massive state of Amazonas.

The killings at both prisons appear to be the work of rival drug gangs. Members of the First Capital Command, or PCC — Brazil's most powerful gang — were among the dozens killed days ago at the Anisio Jobim Penitentiary in Manaus.

Now, Reuters reports that authorities believe the PCC is responsible for Friday's violence in Roraima. They believe it to be a retaliation against rival North Family faction, which is believed to have led the massacre in Manaus. "The Family is allied with the Rio de Janeiro-based Red Command drug gang, Brazil's second most powerful faction after the PCC," the news service writes.

As NPR's Philip Reeves reported Thursday from the city of Manaus, Brazilian officials are facing questions about how prison violence has been allowed to happen on this scale.

"Rights activists say government has lost control of prisons to drug gangs who use inmates as foot soldiers," Philip reported. "Why, in the age of security cameras and X-ray machines, were there so many weapons inside the prison?"</s>At least 33 inmates are dead following a prison riot in northern Brazil on Friday, officials said, the second prison riot in less than a week in the country.

Friday's violence took place at the Agricultural Penitentiary of Monte Cristo, in Brazil's Roraima state in the Amazon, according to Roraima state authorities. The prison is the largest in the state.

The rioting began early Friday and military police officers entered the prison to bring the situation under control, state authorities said.

In October, 25 people were killed in another riot at the same prison.

Sunday, nearly 60 prisoners were killed during a 17-hour uprising at the Anisio Jobim Prison Complex in the city of Manaus, in the neighboring state of Amazonas.

The violence on New Year's Day was between incarcerated members of two gangs: the Familia do Norte (FDN) and the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC).

Brazilian Justice Minister Alexandre de Moraes said he doesn't believe the riot at the Monte Cristo prison was in retaliation for last weekend's incident.

All the inmates in Friday's violence were from one gang -- the PCC -- who were already separated from rival gangs, Moraes said at a news conference in Brasilia.

He spoke at a presentation of the government's new National Security Plan, which he officially launched Thursday with Brazilian President Michel Temer.

Moraes said nearly 50% of the prison population in Brazil is made up of "temporary prisoners" -- which includes those awaiting trial and those who have not yet been convicted. Moraes said he hopes to reduce that number to 18% under the new plan.

"We need a more rational prison system in Brazil. Our current system, by no fault of anyone specifically, arrests many people but not always the right people," Moraes said. "We have a lot of prisoners who should not be in jail."

Brazil has the fourth largest prison population in the world, with more than 622,000 people behind bars, according to its justice ministry. That puts it behind the United States, Russia and China.

CNN's Flora Charner reported from Rio de Janeiro, with Chandrika Narayan writing from Atlanta. CNN en Español's Florencia Trucco and CNN's Deborah Bloom also contributed to this report.</s>Boa Vista - Brazil was hit on Friday by its second grisly prison massacre in a week, as inmates beheaded and mutilated fellow prisoners at a northern jail, leaving 31 dead.

Pictures taken by a police officer at the scene showed bloodied, mangled bodies piled in a concrete hallway at the Monte Cristo Farm Penitentiary (PAMC) in Roraima state.

Many of the victims were beheaded, disembowelled or dismembered, officials said.

The state government said the situation was now "under control".

They lowered an earlier death toll of 33 to 31 late on Friday.

"No shots were fired. The victims were killed with sharp objects and home-made weapons," said state justice secretary Uziel Castro.

The latest unrest came days after jailed gang members killed 56 rivals in a 17-hour bloodbath on Sunday and Monday at a prison in Manaus, the capital of the neighbouring state of Amazonas.

Unlike that incident, Friday's violence did not appear to be an all-out riot but rather a rapid, early morning attack by one group of inmates against another, lasting less than an hour, a local government spokesperson told AFP.

Most of the killings were carried out with knives, she said.

Deadly prison riots have intensified in Brazil since a truce broke down in July between the country's two largest drug gangs, the First Capital Command (PCC) and the Red Command (CV).

PAMC, the largest prison in the state, was also hit by deadly violence in October, when fighting between rival gangs killed 10 inmates.

At the time, the prison held 1 400 inmates - double its capacity.

Authorities said the Manaus riot was caused by a local ally of the Rio de Janeiro-based CV massacring rivals from the Sao Paulo-based PCC.

They said however that Friday's killings appeared not to have been retaliatory, said Justice Minister Alexandre de Moraes.

"It is apparently not a revenge attack by the PCC" for Monday's massacre, after which members of rivals gangs were moved to separate blocks.

Speaking in Brasilia before travelling to the scene, he said PCC members were thought to have attacked prisoners who were not members of any gang.

Castro said it was thought to be "an atrocity committed against regular prisoners."

"The dreadful conditions in the prison are no secret to anyone," he added.</s>RIO DE JANEIRO/SAO PAULO (Reuters) - At least 33 inmates were killed in a prison riot in Brazil on Friday, officials said, possibly in retaliation after members of a powerful drug gang were targeted in the worst prison massacre in decades that left 56 people dead earlier this week.

Several of the dead were decapitated, had their hearts cut out and their bodies burned on a bonfire, the Estado de S.Paulo newspaper reported, citing security officials.

State officials said the riot in Monte Cristo, Roraima state's largest penitentiary, was brought under control by elite police forces. Violence between rival drug gangs in the prison had ended with 10 dead in October.

At least 93 prisoners have been killed in three separate prison riots this week in Brazil, sparking fears that months of violence between drug gangs who control many of the country's prisons was spiraling out of control.

The top security official in the state of Roraima, Uziel de Castro, speaking on BandNews radio, blamed Friday's violence at the state-run prison on the Sao Paulo-based First Capital Command (PCC) drug gang, which was targeted in Monday's massacre at a prison in Amazonas state.

Brazilian Justice Minister Alexandre Moraes said, however, the killings in Roraima were the result of an internal PCC feud and not connected to Monday's prison massacre in Amazonas. He insisted that Brazil had control of its prisons.

Security experts had predicted more violence in Brazil's gang-controlled prison system in the wake of Monday's massacre.

"It's getting really ugly. This situation is clearly snowballing and there is nothing the government can do to stop the violence in the short term," said Rafael Alcadipani, a public security expert at the Getulio Vargas Foundation think tank in Sao Paulo.

"We are paying the price for 50 years of total neglect of the penitentiary system."

In Monday's uprising, members of PCC were attacked by the North Family drug faction, which controls the Anisio Jobim penitentiary in Amazonas, according to officials. North Family in Amazonas is believed to dominate cocaine traffic from Colombia and Peru, according to authorities.

The group is allied with the Rio de Janeiro-based Red Command drug gang, Brazil's second most powerful faction after PCC.

For more than two decades, PCC and Red Command maintained an uneasy alliance, ensuring that a steady flow of drugs and guns flowed across Brazil's long jungle border.

But about six months ago PCC and Red Command split, as PCC moved to take control of lucrative drug routes across the border with Paraguay and become Brazil's dominant gang.

Experts say PCC also has been moving to infiltrate areas in Red Command's home base of Rio de Janeiro, further stoking a turf war that threatens to spill onto the streets of Brazil's biggest cities.

Since the split, Red Command has allied itself with smaller regional gangs to confront PCC, primarily in the north and northeast of Brazil, where this week's prison violence has boiled over.

Alcadipani, the public security expert, said that Brazil's penitentiary system has been "self-regulated" by the gangs and that mass killings were rare until recent months because of a truce between Brazil's biggest criminal factions.

"But we see that as soon as we have a gang war, these killings are inevitably going to happen because the state has no control over the prisons," said Alcadipani.</s>At least 33 more inmates killed in northern Brazil, just days after similar prison riots killed 60.

At least 33 inmates have been killed by their rivals at a prison in northern Brazil, just days after a similar riot by warring gangs erupted at other prisons.

Friday's statement from the justice secretary said the prisoners died overnight at the Agricultural Penitentiary of Monte Cristo in the northern state of Roraima.

The violence did not appear to be an all-out riot but rather a rapid early morning attack by one group of inmates against another, lasting less than an hour, a local government spokeswoman told the Agence France-Presse news agency.

Most of the killings were carried out with knives, she said. No firearms have been found inside the prison so far.

"Authorities in northern Brazil are saying the situation is now under control and that no body escaped in this occasion," Al Jazeera's Daniel Schweimler, reporting from the Argentinian capital Buenos Aires, said.

A police statement said officers, including a heavily armed military-like riot squad, had been deployed to the Monte Cristo prison.

The apparent bloodshed comes just days after rebellions in other two prisons left 60 dead in the neighbouring state of Amazonas.

One institution suffered the country's worst prison bloodshed since 1992, with half of the 56 slain beheaded and several others also dismembered. In another of the riots, four prisoners died.

READ MORE: 56 killed, many beheaded, in grisly Brazil prison riot

A total of 184 inmates escaped from Amazonas prisons in the disturbances. As of Thursday afternoon, only 65 had been recaptured.

Authorities say that in Amazonas, the local Family of the North gang attacked members of Sao Paulo-based First Command, Brazil's biggest criminal organization.

The gangs are believed to be fighting for the control of prisons and drug routes in the northern part of the country, which borders Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and the Guianas.

Brazil has the fourth largest prison population behind the United States, China and Russia.

Horrific conditions and inter-gang violence are seen in many facilities, some of which are essentially run by drug gang leaders who continue to run their criminal enterprises on the outside despite being locked up.

In October, a riot at the Agricultural Penitentiary of Monte Cristo, the same where disturbances were reported on Friday, left 18 dead.</s>RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian authorities said Friday that 33 more prisoners had died at a prison in northern Brazil just days after 60 were killed in rioting at two prisons in a neighboring state.

The federal justice secretary said the new deaths occurred overnight at the Agricultural Penitentiary of Monte Cristo in the city of Boa Vista, in the state of Roraima, but it gave no details. Calls to the secretariat were not returned.

It wasn't immediately clear whether there was a connection to the gruesome rioting earlier this week in the neighboring state of Amazonas, which officials blamed on a war between rival drug gangs over control of prisons and drug routes in northern Brazil, which borders Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and the Guianas.

A police statement said officers, including a heavily armed military-like riot squad, had been deployed to the prison.

"The federal government needs to prepare for a worst case scenario, and that means accelerating measures to keep the situation from getting worse," said Col. Jose Vicente, a former national security adviser and risk consultant.

Just as details about the latest disturbance were emerging, Justice Minister Alexandre de Moraes announced measures to stop the bloodshed.

Moraes said federal police would be more integrated in state capitals and that special task forces would be created to more quickly process criminal charges, a measure aimed at reducing overcrowding. Moraes offered no deadlines for the initiatives but said they would "be realistic" given the recession in Latin America's largest economy.

The rioting Sunday and Monday in Amazonas include the country's worst prison bloodshed since 1992, with half of the 56 slain at one institution beheaded and several others also dismembered. In another of the riots, four prisoners died.

A total of 184 inmates escaped from Amazonas prisons in the disturbances. As of Thursday afternoon, only 65 had been recaptured.

Authorities say that in Amazonas, the local Family of the North gang attacked members of Sao Paulo-based First Command, Brazil's biggest criminal organization.

In October, a riot at the Agricultural Penitentiary of Monte Cristo, the same where disturbances were reported on Friday, left 18 dead.

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Members of the Brazilian Primeiro Comando da Capital prison gang kill 31 inmates in the Monte Cristo prison in the state of Roraima. This action was revenge for an earlier massacre in a prison in Amazonas that killed 56 inmates.