Ecuadoran prison reported quiet after riot left 68 inmates dead

Soldiers toting shotguns took up positions Sunday outside a prison in Ecuador where a riot left at least 68 dead before authorities said they regained control of the overcrowded facility.

The prison in Guayaquil was reported quiet, as soldiers -- barred by law from going inside the prison -- backed up police, who established a security perimeter around the same penitentiary where 119 prisoners died in a riot in September, some of them decapitated.

This time, fighting between rival prison gangs linked to drug trafficking rings first broke out Friday night, with images on social media showing gruesome shots of prisoners beating and setting fire to bloodied bodies.

Authorities said they eventually restored control, but more attacks were reported Saturday evening in a different part of the prison.

President Guillermo Lasso's office said as the day of horror came to an end, that the prison was finally under control thanks to the intervention of 900 police officers.

This year, Ecuador's violent, decrepit and overcrowded prisons have seen some of the worst riotings in the history of Latin American penitentiaries. This week's massacre included, more than 320 inmates have been killed.

And it happened even though a state of emergency was declared in the prisons after the violence of September.

Officials said the latest bout of violence started when the leader of one of the gangs inside the prison was released after serving part of his sentence.

Other groups, sensing weakness with that man gone, went on the attack to try to crush that gang.

Their goal was "to go in and carry out a total massacre," said Pablo Arosemena, governor of Guayas province where the prison is located.

As happened Saturday, dozens of relatives of inmates gathered outside the prison again Sunday and at a police morgue, hoping to find out if their loved ones were among the dead.

At a coroner's office in the city, a man named Felix Gonzalez showed up Saturday holding his imprisoned son's ID card and asked if his body was there.

"It is not fair for him to die for stealing a cell phone," Gonzalez told AFP.