Fire in Tuluá prison leaves 51 dead and thirty injured

First modification: 06/28/2022 – 20:32

During the early hours of this Tuesday, June 28, a fire took place in the medium security prison of the city of Tuluá, belonging to the southwestern department of Valle del Cauca. Official sources reported that there are 51 confirmed deaths so far.

The director of the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (Inpec), Tito Castellanos, stated that “49 of the deceased were in the establishment and the other two were during the transfer to medical centers.”

Castellanos explained that “most” of the dead died “by smoke inhalation” and that identification work is already underway, an activity carried out by the Technical Investigation Corps (CTI) of the Prosecutor’s Office.

The official explained that the tragedy in the Tuluá prison, which receives 1,267 inmates and has an overcrowding of 17%, began due to a fight that led to a riot in which some mattresses were set on fire, but the prisoners could not control the focus and spread over much of the place.

According to the first versions, the fire started around 1:00 am and, despite the fact that the firefighters came quickly, the death of the inmates due to smoke inhalation was inevitable.

The initial report had ratified the death of 49 inmates – a figure later expanded – and the laceration of another 30 who were referred to hospitals in the region. For his part, Castellanos did not clarify the situation of the guards who were also affected.

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The current president of Colombia, Iván Duque, expressed his condolences for the tragedy and issued a message of solidarity for the families of the victims. On his Twitter account, he noted that he has a fluid dialogue with the director of Inpec and urged “advance investigations to clarify the situation.”

While the recently elected Gustavo Petro also sent his affections to the relatives of the deceased and highlighted the prison situation in the country.

“What happened in Tuluá, as in the massacre in La Modelo, forces a complete rethinking of prison policy in the face of the humanization of the prison and the dignity of the prisoner,” he said. “The Colombian state has viewed prison as a space for revenge and not for rehabilitation,” she added.

The precedent of La Modelo, in Bogotá, occurred on the night of March 21, 2020. On that occasion, 24 prisoners died and 90 ended up injured due to a revolt by inmates who requested coronavirus care.

with EFE