Authorities said the riot, which raged from Sunday afternoon into Monday morning, grew out of a fight between two of the country's biggest crime gangs over control of prisons and drug routes in northern Brazil. The revolt started Sunday afternoon as part of a rivalry between two criminal organizations at the Anisio Jobim Prison Complex in the city of Manaus, Agencia Brasil reported, citing Sergio Fontes, the public safety secretary for the state of Amazonas. In the latest riot, a group of inmates exchanged gunfire with police and held 12 prison guards hostage late on Sunday in the largest prison in Manaus, an industrial city on the banks of the Amazon River, Globo TV reported. Sergio Fontes, head of security for Amazonas state, told a news conference that the death toll could rise as authorities get a clearer idea of the scale of the rebellion sparked by a fight between rival drug gangs. “What happened here is another chapter of the war that narcos are waging on this country and it shows that this problem cannot be tackled only by state governments.”

Fontes confirmed that many of the dead had been beheaded. It was the largest death toll during a Brazilian prison riot since the killing of 111 inmates by police officers in the Carandiru penitentiary in Sao Paulo in 1992. “Our prisons were built to annihilate, torture and kill.”

A total of 184 inmates escaped, with 40 recaptured by Monday afternoon. Fontes said the inmates at Anisio Jobim made few demands to end the riot, saying that hinted at a killing spree organized by members of a local gang, the Family of the North, against those of the First Command of the Capital that is based in Sao Paulo.
Prisoners kill at least 56 people in a prison riot in Manaus, Brazil.