Tito Castellanos, director of the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (Inpec), announced that 28 prisoners died early this Tuesday at inside the prison of the city of Tuluá, in the department of Valle del Cauca, in the southwest of the country, and at least 30 more were injured .
According to official information, the tragedy apparently began with a fight or an escape attempt in which some prisoners set fire to several mattresses, which caused a fire that quickly spread inside the prison. prison.
The president of Colombia, Iván Duque, regretted what happened through his Twitter account: “We regret the events that occurred in the Tuluá prison, Calle del Cauca.”
The Colombian president revealed that he has requested a broad and clear investigation to clarify “the terrible situation” inside the prison and expressed his solidarity with the relatives of the deceased.
The elected president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, also used his social networks to lament what happened inside the prison and called for a complete change in prison policy.
“The state Colombian has looked at prison as a space for revenge and not for rehabilitation. What happened in Tuluá, like the massacre in La Modelo, forces a complete rethinking of prison policy in the face of the humanization of the prison and the dignity of the prisoner, ”he wrote.
My condolences to the families of the prisoners killed in the Tulua prison fire.— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) June 28, 2022
So far it is known that there were 1.267 inmates inside the prison.