SAO PAULO (AP) — A fight between rival groups in a jail in northeastern Brazil killed 10 detainees and injured several Monday, officials said.
The fight broke out during the morning in the Public Jail of Itapaje in Ceara state. Police and guards brought the situation under control, according to a statement from the Justice Department of Ceara.
Several detainees who were injured in the fight were treated at a local hospital and then sent back to the jail. Three, however, were injured more seriously and were being sent to a hospital in another city.
In response to the fight, authorities ordered the transfer 44 detainees to other facilities, a common practice to separate rival gang members. Officials also seized two guns, two knives, drugs and cellphones in searches following the unrest.
The department declined to give more details.
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Brazil saw a wave of prison riots and fights between rival gangs last year that resulted in the deaths of dozens of prisoners. Brazil's prisons are often overcrowded, understaffed and virtually controlled by gangs.
Ceara state was also the scene of a grisly massacre Saturday, when gunmen barged into a party and killed 14 people. One person has been arrested on suspicion of participating in the killings, military police said Monday.
The president of Brazilian bar association linked the two events, saying in a statement that both stemmed from a failure of public security officials and a rise in organized crime that is being incubated in the prison system.
"Leaders and public authorities can no longer close their eyes to the fact that organized crime is taking the place of the state in many places," Claudio Lamachia, president of the association, said in a statement. "Fighting crime effectively will mean ending, urgently, the criminal training grounds that prisons have become."
Lamachia specifically called for an end to the housing of suspects awaiting trial with prisoners who are serving long sentences. Many experts say that practice can turn first-time offenders into hardened gang members who will re-offend.