Police and soldiers who stormed a prison in the Ecuadorean city of Guayaquil following days of unrest say they have come across dozens of bodies.
Officials said 31 inmates had been killed since Saturday, when a deadly fight erupted between rival gangs.
The violence quickly spread to other jails and inmates took scores of prison guards hostage in jails across Ecuador.
Officials said 120 guards had been freed but more than a dozen are thought to still be held against their will.
The wave of violence first started in El Litoral, Ecuador’s largest men’s jail, which forms part of the Guayas prison complex in the port city of Guayaquil.
The jail houses more than 5,000 inmates, many of whom are members of Ecuador’s most violent gangs, such as Los Choneros, Los Lobos, Los Tiguerones and Latin Kings.
El Litoral has been the scene of a number of recent prison fights between rival gangs, many of which have been deadly.
In April, 12 inmates died in a gang-on-gang confrontation but the most deadly incident occurred in September 2021, when 119 prisoners were killed inside El Litoral.
The authorities have tried to quell the violence by housing members of rival gangs in different wings of the prison but overcrowding has made it difficult to keep warring factions apart.
—BBC
