Honudras prison fire: relatives demand answers as 350 prisoners die

A FIRE apparently started by a prisoner swept through an overcrowded prison in Honduras, killing more than 350 inmates, many of them trapped and screaming inside their cells.

Survivors told investigators yesterday that an unidentified inmate screamed “We will all die here!” as he set fire to his bedding late on Tuesday night in the prison in the central town of Comayagua. The facility housed those convicted of serious crimes including murder and armed robbery.

The blaze spread within minutes, killing about 100 inmates in their cells as firefighters struggled to find officials who had keys, fire department spokesman Josue Garcia said.

“We couldn’t get them out because we didn’t have the keys and couldn’t find the guards who had them,” he said.

Others prisoners were set free by guards but died as they tried to flee into fields surrounding the jail as rescuers carried shirtless, semi-conscious prisoners from the facility.

A prisoner identified as Silverio Aguilar told HRN Radio that he first knew something was wrong when he heard a scream of “Fire! fire!”

“For a while, nobody listened. But after a few minutes, which seemed like an eternity, a guard appeared with keys and let us out,” he said. He said there had been 60 prisoners in his cell.

Some 475 people escaped; 356 are missing and presumed dead, and 21 were injured, said Hector Ivan Mejia, a spokesman for the Honduras Security Ministry.

Honduras has one of the world’s highest rates of violent crime, and its overcrowded and dilapidated prisons have been hit by a string of riots and fires in recent years. Officials have repeatedly pledged to improve conditions, only to say later they don’t have sufficient funds.

According to government statistics, the Comayagua prison was built in the 1940s for 400 people but now held more than 800 prisoners watched over by about 100 guards.

Honduran president Porfirio Lobo said he had suspended the country’s top penal officials and said he would request international assistance in carrying out a thorough and transparent investigation. He said: “This is a day of profound sadness.”

Outraged relatives of dead inmates tried to storm the prison gates yesterday morning to recover the remains of their loved ones. Channel 5 television showed dozens of inmates’ relatives hurling rocks at officers.

“We want to see the body,” said Juan Martinez, whose son was reported dead. “We’ll be here until we get to do that.”

Fire officials said the fire started around 10:50pm local time on Tuesday when the inmate set his bedding alight.

Danilo Orellana, director of the national prison system, said: “Some of his cellmates said that he screamed, ‘We will all die here!’ And in five minutes everything burned.”

He did not identify the man or speculate about his reasons.

A 2004, a fire killed more than 100 gang members in a state prison north of the Honduran capital. A fire a year earlier at a nearby facility killed 70 gang members. In 1994, a fire sparked by an overheated refrigerator motor in an overcrowded Honduras prison killed 103 people.

Honduran authorities have repeatedly pledged to improve conditions, but human rights groups say little has been done in the country of 7.6 million people, a major transit route for drugs headed from South America to the United States.