44 dead in Mexico riot

A prison riot in northern Mexico left at least 44 people dead early yesterday, according to a security official.

Nuevo Leon state public security spokesman Jorge Domene Zambrano said the riot broke out at about 2am in a high-security section of a prison in the city of Apodaca outside the northern industrial city of Monterrey.

A group of inmates in one cell block started to riot and took one of the guards hostage, Domene said. The riot then spread to a second cell block, and at 44 people died before authorities regained control of the prison a couple of hours later.

Prisoners’ families gathered at the prison yesterday, pushing at the fences and shouting at police to demand word of the victims.