Officials: Prison riots in Brazil prison leave 15 dead

Clashes between inmates killed 15 people at a jail in Amazonas state in northern Brazil on Sunday, the regional prison authority said.

The clashes reportedly broke out during visiting hours at Anísio Jobim Penitentiary Complex, in Manaus.

Some of the victims were stabbed with sharpened toothbrushes in front of visitors, whilst others were strangled to death.

Officials say the violence has been contained and an investigation has begun into the cause of the struggle.

"It was total chaos," the mother of an inmate - who did not wish to be named - told the Rio Times.

"Everyone started to run, and everyone was pounding on the cell gates, at the doors, and running down the aisles".

An investigation has been opened to determine the cause of the fight, Colonel Marcos Vinicius Almeida told a news conference.

"It was a fight between the inmates. There had never been deaths during the visits," Almeida said.

Almeida emphasized that authorities had reacted within minutes to the Sunday violence, preventing a potentially worse result.

In January 2017, the same facility was the scene of a prison rebellion that lasted almost 20 hours and left 56 people dead.

Brazil has the world's third-largest prison population - 712,305 inmates in April this year, according to official figures.

The population is double the capacity of the nation's prisons, which in 2016 was estimated to be 368,049 inmates. This has led to severe overcrowding, fuelling gang violence, riots and sometimes breakout attempts.

In early 2017, several violent rebellions left 119 people dead in jails in northern Brazil.

Around 92 inmates also escaped last September after heavily armed men set off explosives outside a prison and shot their way inside, killing a policeman.

Attempts to reform the prison system and to introduce tighter controls have met with resistance from powerful criminal gangs which operate both inside and outside of jails.

Along with severe overcrowding, Brazil's prisons are plagued by gang violence, while riots and breakout attempts are not uncommon.