Brawl at women's prison in Honduras leaves six dead and two injured

Six prisoners have died and two have been injured after a brawl at a women's prison in Honduras, authorities have said.

The incident started on Saturday night in the National Women's Penitentiary for Social Adaptation, said Jose Gonzalez, the head of a prison commission, but was brought under control in the early hours of Sunday.

An inmate set fire to an area at the prison north of Tegucigalpa where two newly incarcerated women were undergoing a 14-day quarantine for coronavirus, authorities said.

Amid the confusion, a group of inmates broke out of two other cells and headed to the prison gymnasium, where they killed six other women who had recently entered the prison.

"While the fire was being controlled, some of the inmates broke through the roof of their module and went to another module," Mr Gonzalez said.

It was not immediately clear how the inmates died.

Oscar Triminio, a spokesman for the Honduran Fire Department, said that shots could be heard from inside when the firefighters arrived at the prison.

Prison officials said they were working with police and prosecutors to investigate the attack.

Honduran prisons, which often hold rival gang members, are notorious for violence, though usually in facilities that hold men.

Nineteen inmates died in a December riot at the Porvenir prison in central Honduras.

Another 18 died in another incident at the prison in Tela, along the Caribbean coast.