Mexico City: A fight among inmates at a prison in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas Saturday left 20 dead and 12 injured, officials said.
The state’s Public Safety Secretariat said in a communique that the incident occurred early Saturday when a fight broke out between two inmates and soon other convicts jumped into the fray. The officials gave no further details in their two-paragraph communique.
The jail in Matamoros, a city located across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, was March 25, 2010 the scene of a jailbreak by 40 prisoners.
Brawls in Mexican jails are particularly frequent in northern Mexico.
On Thursday a fight between two groups of drug traffickers left seven dead and three seriously injured in the prison at Cadereyta, Nuevo Leon state, near Tamauilipas.
Both states have been racked by drug-related violence pitting the Gulf cartel against former allies Los Zetas. (IANS)