– Notorious prisons –
Some 20 prisoners were moved out of the prison following the tragedy, a state official told AFP.
“It’s one of the most complicated (prisons) and it is in a very complicated area, too. Obviously, we have to look at the future of this prison,” Rodriguez said.
Mexican penitentiaries are notoriously overcrowded and massive prison breaks have taken place in recent years.
In February 2012, 44 inmates were killed and another 30 escaped from another Monterrey prison, known as Apodaca.
Even at the country’s top maximum-security prison, the Altiplano near Mexico City, weaknesses were exposed when drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman escaped through a tunnel in July. He was recaptured in January.
Ruth Villanueva, an expert at the governmental National Human Rights Commission, told local media last year that there was a serious crisis at the country’s prisons, with 72 of them overcrowded by more than 20 percent.
President Enrique Pena Nieto’s administration vowed to reform the penitentiary system following Guzman’s escape last year.
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