COMAYAGUA, Honduras - Honduran officials confirmed yesterday that 358 people died when a fire tore through an overcrowded prison, making it the world’s deadliest prison fire in a century....
The fire started by an inmate tore through the prison, burning and suffocating screaming men in their crowded barracks as rescuers desperately searched for keys to unlock the doors.
Do you smell something?
The local governor, who was once a prison employee, told reporters that an inmate called her moments before the blaze broke out and screamed: “I will set this place on fire and we are all going to die!’’
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Officials have long had little control over conditions inside many Honduran prisons, where inmates have largely unfettered access to cellphones and other contraband.
Survivors also told investigators that the unidentified inmate yelled “We will all die here!’’ as he set his bedding ablaze late Tuesday night in the prison. The lockup housed people convicted of serious crimes such as homicide and armed robbery, but also people awaiting trial....
Honduran prisons are infamous for being old, overcrowded hotbeds of conflict and crime....
Honduran President Porfirio Lobo said on national television that he had suspended the country’s top penal officials, including national prison system director Danilo Orellana, and would request international assistance in carrying out a thorough investigation....
Honduras has one of the world’s highest rates of violent crime, and its dilapidated prisons have been hit by a string of deadly riots and fires. Officials have repeatedly pledged to improve conditions, only to say they don’t have sufficient funds....
Change for the worse since the coup, 'eh?
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"Deadly prison fire exposes dysfunction in Honduras; Victims’ families blame officials for slow response" by Mark Stevenson and Martha Mendoza | Associated Press, February 17, 2012
COMAYAGUA, Honduras - The deadliest prison blaze in a century has exposed just how deep government dysfunction and confusion go in Honduras, a small Central American country with the world’s highest murder rate....
Yeah, I WAS WONDERING ABOUT THAT MYSELF.
They also faulted prison officials for failing to get help inside quickly as flames engulfed the facility. Hundreds of screaming men burned and suffocated inside their locked cells as rescuers desperately searched for keys.
Horrifying!
“Those who lock up the prisoners are in charge of their welfare. Why couldn’t they open the doors?’’ said Manuela Alvardo, whose 34-year-old son died. He was to have been released in May after serving a sentence for murder.
“It couldn’t have been a mattress fire. This guy wasn’t alone. He was in a crowded cell. The other prisoners wouldn’t have allowed that to happen. They would have put out the fire.’’
No matter where you go authorities lie!
From the time firefighters received a call at 10:59 p.m., the rescue was marred by human error and prison conditions.
Only six guards were on duty, four in towers overlooking the prison and two in the facility itself, said Fidel Tejeda, who was assigned to a tower that night. One of the guards posted inside held all the keys to the prison doors, he said....
Survivors said they watched helplessly as the guard who had the keys fled without unlocking their cells....
Hector Daniel Martinez, who was being held as a homicide suspect, said an inmate who was not locked in because he also worked as a nurse picked up the keys and went from one cell block to another, opening doors.
“He went into the flames and started breaking the locks,’’ said Jose Enrique Guevara, who is five years into an 11-year sentence for auto theft. “He saved us.’’
Guevara said the nurse could get only a handful of the keys and had to use a bench to break the lock of the cellblock where the fire started.
But by that time, it was already too late for hundreds of prisoners.
Inside the prison yesterday, charred walls and debris showed the path of the fire, which burned through five of the 10 barracks, each crammed with 70 to 105 inmates.
Bodies were piled in the bathrooms, where inmates apparently fled to the showers, hoping the water would save them from the flames. Prisoners perished clutching each other in bathtubs and curled up in laundry sinks.
I can't imagine the horror.
Honduras has been the site of two other major prison fires, in 2003 and 2004, that killed a total of 176 inmates. Government officials were convicted of wrongdoing in the 2003 blaze.
The United Nations recently named Honduras as the country with the world’s highest murder rate, with 82 homicides per 100,000, much of it related to drug trafficking and street gangs.
The US State Department has criticized the Honduran government for harsh prison conditions, citing severe overcrowding, malnutrition, and lack of adequate sanitation.
That's really rich coming from a nation that tortures people.
Howard Berman, a California Democrat and former chairman of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, questioned US aid to Honduras last fall, saying human rights abuses involving security forces had “reached a distressing pitch.’’
“The most chilling aspect of this rather gruesome set of problems is that US government assistance is flowing into the thick of it,’’ Berman wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Yeah, well, that's because they ARE OUR GUYS!!
A Honduran government report obtained by the AP said 57 percent of the inmates at Comayagua had not been convicted of any crime, but were either awaiting trial or being held as suspected gang members.
Meaning they darn well may have been innocent!
This is not unusual. Nationwide, more than half of the 11,000 inmates in the country’s 24 prisons are awaiting trial. Every prison is crammed with more people than it was built for, and there is rarely enough food. Prisoners are beaten and tortured, and gangs control the inside because there is, on average, just one guard for every 65 prisoners....
Translation: It's like any other prison.
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"A DEADLY BLAZE'S AFTERMATH -- a man readied a grave for a family member who died in a prison fire in Comayagua, Honduras. The death toll rose to 356 yesterday as collective rage rose among relatives of the victims gathered outside the morgue. A decade of crackdowns on crime in Central America has left the region dotted with fire-prone prisons often crammed with more than twice the number of inmates they can safely handle (Boston Globe February 18 2012)."
What with the death toll rise actually being a reduction?
Globe sure put that fire out quick.
Related: Honduran Hide-and-Seek
I hate being right all the time.
UPDATE:
"At least 13 people died during an uprising by armed inmates at a Honduran prison on Thursday, including one who was decapitated and others killed by a fire started by the rioters, authorities said.
The unrest came six weeks after a fire at another prison in Honduras killed 361 inmates. A fire official said the toll from the latest blaze could rise....
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Globe never got back to it.
