About 91 prisoners escaped a jail in northeastern Brazil by fleeing through a 30-meter tunnel. Reportedly, nine of the inmates have been found, while police are attempting to nab the remaining 82. They disappeared from the prison in Parnamirim, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte.
This incident happened just months after 56 inmates escaped from the Alcacuz jail. In the incident in Rio Grande do Norte, 26 people were massacred during a bloody skirmish amid two rival gangs. The incident was part of a wave of violence at the beginning of the year in the nation’s overloaded jail.
Notably, Parnamirim prison remains usually overcrowded with 589 prisoners in a facility designed for 382. The justice ministry at the end of 2014 registered 622,000 detainees. Thus, Brazil has the world’s fourth-largest prison population, behind the United States, China and Russia.
