Authorities say incident in Portuguesa state was a failed escape attempt, but activists call it a massacre

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Twenty-nine detainees were killed and 19 police officers were wounded during a confrontation in a police cell block in north-western Venezuela.

The incident, which took place in the town of Acarigua in the state of Portuguesa, was described by state official as a failed escape attempt, but human rights groups have called it a massacre.

“There was an attempted escape and a fight broke out among [rival] gangs,” the Portuguesa citizen security secretary, Oscar Valero, told reporters. “With police intervention to prevent the escape, well, there were 29 deaths.” He said some 355 people were being held in the cell block.

Detainees detonated three grenades, which wounded 19 police officers, he said. Venezuela’s information ministry has not replied to a request for comment.

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Human rights groups questioned the official version of events.

“How is it that there was a confrontation between prisoners and police, but there are only dead prisoners?” Humberto Prado of the Venezuelan Prisons Observatory said. “And if the prisoners had weapons, how did those weapons get in?”

Detainees for several days had been demanding that government ombudsmen help them avoid being transferred to distant prisons where they would not be able to receive visits from relatives, Prado said.

Authorities entered the cell block to carry out searches and remove visiting women when violence broke out, Prado said, estimating the facility in fact held some 540 inmates.

Police cell blocks are meant to hold people for 48 hours while they face formal charges, but detainees can spend months or even years in such facilities due to prison overcrowding and judicial delays.

In 2018, a riot that led to a fire in a police cell block in the central city of Valencia killed at least 78 people.