At least 41 people died and another seven were injured in a brawl and a fire registered this Tuesday at the Women’s Center for Social Adaptation (Cefas) near the Honduran capital, for which the security authorities ordered their immediate intervention.

The spokesman for the Public Ministry, Yuri Mora, confirmed to journalists that “41 inmates have died so far, most of them have been burned,” but the final figure will not be known until the removal of the bodies is complete.

Until now, no authority from the National Penitentiary Institute (INP) of Honduras has reported the number of people killed or injured.

The president of the Association of Relatives of Deprived of Liberty, Delma Ordóñez, told journalists that the brawl and the fire at Cefas allegedly occurred after authorities notified new rules inside the jail.

The Vice Minister of Security, Julissa Villanueva, ordered a “immediate intervention” in jail after declaring an emergency over the fight and assured that the authorities “we are not going to tolerate acts of vandalism or irregularities.”

Villanueva told journalists that the brawl is “the product of the actions of organized crime” in response to the intervention announced by the authorities in the prisons of Ilama, in Santa Bárbara, in the west of the country, and La Ceiba, in the Caribbean. .

in Cephas “vandalism has been reactivated and women, with weapons and balaclavas, set fires”but the fire has already been controlled by the Honduran Fire Department, said Villanueva, who has been appointed by Honduran President Xiomara Castro to lead an intervention in the country’s prisons.

The Honduran authorities announced on April 18 a set of measures to bring order to the country’s prisons that involve the blocking of cell phone calls, a real disarmament of the prisoners and the classification of the inmates for dangerousness.

Since April, a dozen shootings or confrontations have been registered in the prisons of Honduras, where overcrowding and overcrowding prevail, the lack of adequate and safe physical facilities for housing inmates, and the hygiene and sanitation conditions are deplorable.