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		</div><p>At least 57 prisoners have been killed by other inmates during clashes between organised crime groups at Altamira prison in northern Brazil, according to officials.</p>
<p>Para state prison authorities said 16 of the victims were decapitated while others were asphyxiated.</p>
<p>The death toll could rise when authorities have searched all areas involved, state prisons chief Jarbas Vasconcelos said at a news conference.</p>
<p>Prison authorities said a fight erupted at around 7am between the Rio de Janeiro-based Comando Vermelho and another group, Comando Classe A.</p>
<p><em>&#8220;We was a targeted attack. The aim was to show that it was a settling of accounts between the two groups.&#8221;</em></p>
<p><em>“Leaders of the (Comando Classe A) set fire to a cell belonging to one of the prison’s pavilions, where members of the (Comando Vermelho) were located,”</em> the statement read.</p>
<p>Mr Vasconcelos said the fire spread rapidly, with inmates held in old container units that had been adapted for the prison while another building is under construction.</p>
<p>The fire prevented police forces from entering the building for about five hours, he said.</p>
<p>Two prison staff members were held hostage, but eventually released.</p>
<p><em>“It was a targeted attack. The aim was to show that it was a settling of accounts between the two groups, not a protest or rebellion against the prison system,”</em> Mr Vasconcelos said.</p>
<p>Authorities have not found any firearms following the riot, only makeshift knives.</p>
<p>Prison authorities said they were still trying to determine who were the leaders behind the attack, and those men will be transferred to federal prisons.</p>
<p>President Jair Bolsonaro was elected on the promise of curbing widespread violence in Brazil, including in the country’s often overcrowded, out-of-control prisons.</p>
<p>State authorities deny the facility was overcrowded, but the Associated Press obtained a report from the National Justice Council that it says was filed by a local judge in charge of the facility, showing that the prison had 343 detainees for a maximum capacity of 163.</p>
<p>He described the state of the prison in the city of Altamira as “terrible”.</p>
<p>In many of Brazil’s prisons, badly outnumbered guards struggle to retain power over an ever-growing population of inmates who run criminal activities from behind bars.</p>
<p>The killings echoed those of 55 inmates who died in a series of riots in May in several prisons in the neighbouring state of Amazonas.</p>
<p>In early 2017, more than 120 inmates died in prisons across several northern states when rival gangs clashed over control of drug-trafficking routes in the region. The violence lasted several weeks, spreading to various states.</p>
<p>Prison authorities said they had not received any prior intelligence reports of an upcoming attack.</p>
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