32 killed in Tajikistan prison riot

Astana: At least 32 people were killed in a prison riot in Tajikistan, including 24 members of a terrorist group and three guards, authorities said Monday.

Five inmates and the three guards were initially killed by prisoners in the riot that erupted on Sunday evening, and the others died in clashes with security forces trying to restore order, the justice ministry said in a statement.

The prison in Vakhdat, 17 kilometres east of the capital Dushanbe, holds 1,500 inmates.

The ministry said the rioters first stabbed to death three guards, and then five other inmates “in order to intimidate” the others.

They then took other prisoners hostage before opening fire on the jail’s medical facilities.

“Following a reprisal operation, 24 members of this group were killed and 35 others arrested. The hostages were freed” and calm restored to the prison, the statement said.

Two of the prisoners murdered by the rioters were well-known activists of a banned opposition group, the local prison service said.

Authorities said the prison was now functioning normally, with the “situation currently under control.”

The prison is a short drive from Dushanbe, with residential neighbourhoods nearby. It houses inmates convicted of various crimes, including terror and extremism charges, and is protected by armed guards.

Families of inmates gathered near the prison on Monday to find out if their relatives were safe.

In November 2018, another riot claimed by a terror group left 26 people dead in Khujand, a city in the northeast of the country. That riot was started by an inmate trying to spark a mass prison break.

Tajikistan, an impoverished mountainous country of just under 9 million people bordering Afghanistan, has suffered from a number of violent episodes since it gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Tens of thousands of people were killed in Tajikistan during a five-year civil war in the 1990s when rebel groups rose up against the government.