At Least 51 Dead in Prison Riot Fire in Colombia, Prisons Agency Says

Members of the Technical Investigative Corps (CTI) stand outside the prison after several prisoners died when rioting inmates set a fire early in the morning to try to prevent police entering their enclosure in Tulua, Valle del Cauca Department, Colombia, on June 28, 2022. STR/AFP via Getty Images

BOGOTA—At least 51 prisoners died after a fire started during a prison riot in the southwestern Colombian city of Tulua, the head of the national prisons agency said on Tuesday, one of the worst incidents of recent prison violence in the country.

“It is a tragic and disastrous event,” General Tito Castellanos, director of the INPEC prison agency, told local Caracol Radio early on Tuesday. “There was a situation, apparently a riot, the prisoners lit some mattresses and a conflagration occurred.”