“Nearly 1,000 police battled Thursday for control of an Ecuador prison where rioting left at least 116 inmates dead, some of them decapitated, as rival drug gangs went to war armed with guns and grenades. Another 80 prisoners were wounded, according to Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso, in one of the deadliest prison battles in South American history. The riot broke out Tuesday at a prison complex in the port city of Guayaquil between prisoners believed to have links to Mexican drug gangs – mainly the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels” AFP reports.

“The police service tweeted Thursday that 900 officers and members of tactical units were engaged in a ‘mega-operation’ to restore order. Earlier they said 400 police were helping to “guarantee security” in the complex. On Wednesday at least two officers were injured when rioting inmates, armed with guns, attacked police sent in to retake control of the facility. Soldiers and tanks are also stationed outside the jail, where hundreds of worried family members have gathered, desperate for news from the men locked up inside. ‘It is a very painful thing… They say people have had their heads taken off,’ said Juana Pinto, who is seeking news about her inmate son. Cecilia Quiroz, a relative of another prisoner, added: ‘For us family members, this is a horrible thing… We do not know what to do. We feel powerless, not to be able to help them.'”