25 dead, 100 injured in clashes at Sri Lanka prison
COLOMBO — At least 25 people have been killed and more than 100 were wounded in clashes between two groups of prisoners at a prison in Sri Lanka on Monday, police sources and hospital sources said.
Violence broke out at the prison in Negombo, about 35km (22 miles) north of the capital, Colombo, on Sunday and continued on Monday, according to local media reports and police.
The clashes began on Sunday between convicted prisoners and those under detention at the prison in the coastal town. The trigger for the clashes was not immediately known.
Police sources said that areas within the prison were still being cleared, with officials working to account for the dead and the injured.
"Military has been requested to provide support to the police but at the moment they are on standby," Army spokesman Brigadier Waruna Gamage told Reuters.
Footage from Derana TV showed a heavy police presence outside the gate of the prison as a police bus carrying the injured inmates, some of them sprawled on its floor, left the premises.
Pushpa Gamlath, director of the Negombo hospital, said the facility had received 23 bodies and more than 100 wounded inmates and guards had also been admitted to hospital, the AFP news agency reported.
