ARGENTINA: RELATIVES OF PRISONERS CROWD AROUND BUENOS AIRES PRISON AFTER JAIL RIOT WHICH CLAIMED 60 LIVES.

Record ID: 449061

  • Title: ARGENTINA: RELATIVES OF PRISONERS CROWD AROUND BUENOS AIRES PRISON AFTER JAIL RIOT WHICH CLAIMED 60 LIVES.
  • Date: 16th March 1978
  • Summary: 1. EXTERIOR GV: Villa Devoto prison in Buenos Aires. 0.05 2. GV: smoke-blackened windows of prison block 0.10 3. GV: prison 0.14 4. GV: front entrance to prison PULL BACK TO MV AND ZOOM IN relatives of prisoners awaiting news on street corner. 0.26 5. MV: wives of prisoners talking to armed guards (2 shots) 0.38 6. MV PAN: anxious wives and relatives waiting 0.43 7. MV PAN: ambulance searched by guards en route to prison 0.53 8. CU PULL BACK TO MV crying wives (2 shots) 1.02 9. MV: woman faints and is carried off by others 1.15 10. MV PAN: guards search another ambulance en route to prison 1.30 Initials RH/2035 Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 31st March 1978 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
  • Country: Argentina
  • Reuters ID: LVA4O5HXO9XZQ6ZE2XZ3LM180TIX
  • Story Text: In Argentina a violent riot in a Buenos Aires prison has left 60 dead. The riot broke out on Tuesday morning (14 March) when prisoners attacked guards and set fire their mattresses. The victims, all prisoners died from burns and asphyxiation.

    SYNOPSIS: It was the second serious riot at Villa Devoto prison in the last 15 years. But this time it was more bloody. Six times as many people died, all of them prisoners.

    The authorities acted quickly to suppress the riot, using troops backed by police in helicopter gunships. After the shooting was over, relatives of prisoners gathered to hear the news.

    Guard on duty told them to go on the headquarters of the Prisons Service in central Buenos Aires if they wanted any information on the casualties. But most made no effort to leave the area.

    Meanwhile ambulances continued to arrive to take away the dead and injured. Reporters counted 15.

    When the women waiting for news realised they would not be getting any details they began crying and screaming abuse. One woman collapsed and had to be helped away. Much of the delay in producing a list of casualties was because many prisoners were so badly burned they could not be identified.

    Villa Devoto is a maximum-security prison which houses hardened criminals as well as women political prisoners awaiting trail. But according to the authorities, those who took part in the riot were in the criminal block.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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