TEGUCIGALPA—Honduras’ military began taking control of the country’s violent prisons on Monday, following a gang dispute that left 46 inmates dead at a women’s detention center last week, officials said. President Xiomara Castro announced last week she would hand the military police control of the prison system, a departure from a past stance of demilitarizing…

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras—The death toll from a riot at a women’s prison in Honduras rose to 46, a government spokesperson said on Wednesday, as anxious relatives demanded information about the fate of incarcerated family members. Relatives of inmates gathered at the Centro Femenino de Adaptacion Social, the 900-person women’s penitentiary around 20 kilometers (12 miles) from…

BOGOTA—At least 51 prisoners died after a fire started during a prison riot in the southwestern Colombian city of Tulua, the head of the national prisons agency said on Tuesday, one of the worst incidents of recent prison violence in the country. “It is a tragic and disastrous event,” General Tito Castellanos, director of the…

Dozens of inmates were killed on Tuesday after gang members started a riot at a prison located in a coastal city in southwest Ecuador, officials said. The violence erupted at a prison in the Guayaquil region and it took police and military officials five hours to regain control. The fighting involved gunfire, knives, and explosions…

GUATEMALA CITY—Six people were killed in a prison in western Guatemala after a riot broke out at the facility on Wednesday, authorities said in a statement. The victims were found decapitated on a patio in the overcrowded prison in the town of Cantel in the state of Quetzaltenango, the police statement said. A police source,…