Dozens of inmates were killed Sunday in a fierce brawl inside a Mexican prison

Dozens of inmates were killed Sunday in a fierce brawl inside a Mexican prison, authorities said, the latest lethal incident in Latin America's overcrowded, poorly maintained jails.


Officials said at least 44 inmates died at the prison outside the northern industrial city of Monterrey.


Initial reports blamed the violence on efforts to transfer some inmates to another jailhouse elsewhere in the country. But it was also likely that the fighting involved rival drug gangs that increasingly dominate Mexican prisons. One guard was reported having been taken hostage, but none was reported killed.


Public security authorities in Nuevo Leon state, where Monterrey is, said inmates began fighting in one cellblock about 2 a.m. and the violence spread to a second block.


Relatives of inmates gathered before dawn for Sunday visiting hours and realized that something was badly amiss inside. They shoved against security gates to demand information; some told reporters they had heard explosions and seen smoke coming from the prison.


But Jorge Domene, the state's public security spokesman, said all of the dead were killed by knives, other sharp instruments, clubs or stones.


He said authorities regained control of the institution about four hours after the clashes started. Most of the prisoners were incarcerated on drug-trafficking charges and related crimes, Domene said.


Last week, more than 350 people were killed when fire spread through an overcrowded prison in Comayagua, Honduras, underscoring the deteriorating conditions in prisons throughout Latin America.


Mexico'sraging drug war is helping to fill prisons in many cities at more than twice the capacity.


In Sunday's incident, the prison in a town called Apodaca, about 20 miles from Monterrey, was reportedly built to hold 1,500 inmates but had a population of 3,000.


Violence in Mexican prisons, mostly between rival gangs, has killed more than 100 inmates in the last two years. Mass escapes are routine.


Sunday's "tragedy is not an isolated incident, but rather one that is part of a continuous and perverse process of dehumanization in the penitentiary centers," the Monterrey-based Citizens in Support of Human Rights said in a statement. Authorities "have failed to take basic measures to secure the lives and integrity of inmates, as well as of the people who work in these centers."