MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Four Paraguayan prison inmates dead in rival gang clash

All the deceased were inmates, three of them from the Rotela side

Clashes between inmates belonging to the autochthonous Rotela Clan and Brazil's First Capital Command (PCC) left four of them dead and three others wounded Wednesday at the Regional Penitentiary in Pedro Juan Caballero, in the Paraguayan department of Amambay. A team of the National Police's Special Operations Group (GEO) and the riot squad were deployed to restore normalcy.

According to Paraguayan police, the scuffle broke out when the groups met in the central patio for a football match. Prisoners are normally housed in different wards of the correctional facility. The Armed Forces Joint Task Force (FTC) and volunteer firefighters also participated in the operation during which firearms, magazines, cartridges, bladed weapons, cell phones, and suspicious substances appearing to be narcotics were seized.

All the deceased were inmates, three of them from the Rotela side. Among the wounded, there was a Brazilian citizen. Medical examiners said all the bodies had gunshot wounds. The deceased were identified as Pedro Javier Cabañas, Ignacio de Jesús Barrios, Óscar David Riquelme, and Óscar Melida Gómez. Later Wednesday, the Justice Ministry relocated the surviving inmates to other prisons nationwide to avoid an encore but one of them was hospitalized with a gunshot wound. All four bodies were taken to a private university for a post-mortem to determine the cause of their deaths.

Amambay Police Chief Ignacio Muñoz told ABC that inside the prison there was a homemade explosive, with a 9,000-volt battery as a feeder, a fuel charger, drugs, and a significant amount of bladed weapons. The bomb was detonated by an explosives handling team.

According to the Justice Ministry's website, the problem started at 3.20 pm local time, after which the National Police was deployed. Around 5 pm the Ministry announced that the situation was “under control.”

In previous clashes between the First Capital Command (PCC) and the Rotela Clan, in November last year, it was reported that the PCC had executed a member of the Rotela Clan by lethal injection in the Cambyretá prison.