Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"Acarigua\"](\"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Acarigua-map.jpg\")
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At least 29 inmates have died after clashes broke out at a prison inside a Venezuelan police station, authorities have said.<\/p>\n
Oscar Valero, public security chief for Portuguesa state, said at least 19 police officers were wounded.<\/p>\n
He said the violence broke out when police special forces (FAES) tried to stop a “massive” break-out.<\/p>\n
The jail, in Acarigua, is designed to hold 250 people but currently has around 540, rights groups said.<\/p>\n
Mr Valero told reporters that police officers had faced “a hail of gunfire” and that inmates detonated grenades in Friday’s incident.<\/p>\n
A prisoners’ rights group, Una Ventana a la Libertad, said the clashes broke out when officers tried to rescue visitors who had been taken hostage by inmates on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“This morning (authorities) sent the FAES and there was a clash,” director Carlos Nieto told AFP news agency.<\/p>\n
“The detainees had weapons, they shot at the police. Apparently they also detonated two grenades.”<\/p>\n
However, Humberto Prado from the Venezuelan Prisons Observatory rights group said the clashes broke out when authorities entered the block to carry out searches and remove female visitors.<\/p>\n
He told Reuters news agency: “How is it that there was a confrontation between prisoners and police but there are only dead prisoners? And if the prisoners had weapons, how did those weapons get in?”<\/p>\n
Venezuela has seen a number of violent prison clashes in recent years. In March 2018, 68 inmates died in a fire at a police jail.<\/p>\n
In August 2017, at least 37 people were killed when a\u00a0riot broke out in a prison in southern Venezuela.<\/a><\/p>\n Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/a><\/p>\n