Tajik prison riot leaves 26 dead

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan: Twenty-four prisoners and two guards were killed after dozens of inmates rioted at a maximum security prison in northern Tajikistan, security sources said on Thursday.

Special forces were called in to help restore order at the prison in Tajikistan’s second-largest city of Khujand after the riot broke out there on Wednesday, sources told AFP. The penal facility houses prisoners serving long sentences for serious crimes such as murder and extremism including membership of the Islamic State group (IS).

One security source told AFP that the non-prisoners who died were a guard and a soldier. A second source said that a further six guards had been injured. "A riot involving dozens of prisoners occurred on Wednesday night and continued into Thursday," one of the security officials told AFP, requesting anonymity. The second source said the riot had begun when prisoners seized "cutting objects" from a workshop in the prison. A funeral for the soldier and the guard who died in the clashes was planned for Thursday, one of the sources said.