COLOMBO, July 6 (Reuters) – Twenty-five people were killed and about 100 injured in clashes between two groups of prisoners at a prison in Sri Lanka on Monday, two police sources and one hospital source told Reuters.
The clashes began on Sunday between convicted prisoners and those under detention at the prison in the coastal town of Negombo, about 35 km (20 miles) north of the commercial capital city of Colombo, the sources said.
The trigger for the clashes was not immediately known.
Police sources said that areas within the prison were still being cleared, with officials working to account for the dead and the injured.
“Military has been requested to provide support to the police but at the moment they are on standby,” Army spokesman Brigadier Waruna Gamage told Reuters.
Visuals from Derana TV showed heavy police deployment outside the gate of the prison as a police bus carrying the injured inmates, some of them sprawled on its floor, left the premises.
(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe, writing by Sakshi Dayal; Editing by YP Rajesh)
