Dozens killed as riot broke out in Tajikistan’s prison

Three prison guards have been killed during a riot at a high-security prison in Tajikistan, the country's justice ministry said.

At least 24 inmates have also reportedly been killed in clashes at the prison in Vakhdat, east of the Tajik capital Dushanbe.

Tajikistan’s Justice Ministry said the riot broke out late on Sunday as militants armed with knives killed three guards and five fellow prisoners.

The authorities said one of the instigators of the riot was Bekhruz Gulmurod, a son of Gulmurod Khalimov, a Tajik special forces colonel who defected to Islamic State in 2015 and, according to the government, has since been killed in Syria. The ministry did not specify whether the younger Gulmurod was among those killed in the riot.

The militants then torched the prison hospital, took several inmates hostage and tried to fight their way out. Security forces killed 24 militants in the battle to restore order in the prison, the ministry said. The prison houses 1,500 inmates.

Among prisoners who were killed were two senior members of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), an Islamist party outlawed by the government of President Imomali Rakhmon in 2015. Another was a prominent Tajik cleric convicted on charges of calls to overthrow the government.

The facility holds people convicted of religious extremism, including members of the Islamic State (IS).

Hundreds of people from the impoverished former Soviet republic of 9 million are believed to have joined Islamic State, which at one point controlled large swathes of land in Syria and Iraq.

It's the second deadly prison riot to hit Tajikistan in the last six months.

No details of the victims have yet been released, but the ministry said the situation is under control and an investigation has been opened up.

Last November, 21 prisoners and two guards were killed during a riot at a maximum-security prison in Khujand, in northern Tajikistan. IS has claimed responsibility for the incident.