14 inmates killed in fight in Mexico jail

MEXICO CITY - Fourteen inmates died Friday during a fight at the Matamoros prison in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, on the border with the US, authorities said.

The fight, whose causes were not immediately known, started at around 1100 GMT and guards and state police managed to get the situation under control two hours later, said Tamaulipas Public Security Minister Jose Ives Soberon.

According to Soberon, the fight originally involved a small group but later became a mass affair.

The dead, who were reportedly in prison for crimes like drug-trafficking, human trafficking and kidnapping, suffered lethal wounds from home-made knives.

After the incident, all inmates were being searched for more weapons.

Mass killings are relatively common in Mexican jails. On Monday, four inmates were killed at a jail in the northern state of Durango. In June, 29 people were shot dead during a fight at a prison in Mazatlan, in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, while 23 inmates had been killed in January in another jail in Durango.