Mexican prison massacre leaves at least ten dead including a child as riot breaks out during visiting hours

DAILYMAIL.COM • 7h ago

By WILL HALLOWELL, NEWS REPORTER 15:34 09 Oct 2026, updated 15:37 09 Oct 2026

Ten people including a child were killed after a deadly riot broke out at a Mexican prison during visiting hours.

Violence erupted on Thursday morning at the El Castillo Penitentiary in the port city of Mazatlan.

According to local media, firearms were involved and the sound of gunshots inside the prison can be heard in footage recorded outside the jail’s perimeter.

Sinaloa’s public security secretariat said nine prisoners were killed in the violence as well as one family member.

A child was among the dead but it is not clear whether they were an inmate.

Meanwhile 16 inmates were taken for medical treatment after being injured in the firefight.

Mexican troops including the army, national guard, navy and state security forces were deployed.

The prison, which houses 1,800 inmates, is now ‘under control’ according to Mexico’s federal security cabinet.

Experts say overcrowding, driven in part by the use of pretrial detention – which keeps thousands of people behind bars without a sentence – combined with insufficient prison staff, has fueled corruption and violence inside Mexican jails.

Last May, a riot broke out at a prison in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, leaving seven prisoners dead and another injured.

Mexico has 276 prisons, including 14 federal penitentiaries and 249 state prisons.

The prison population reached 261,388 people as of February, according to official figures.

Violence erupted in Sinaloa in September 2024 amid an internal power struggle between two factions of the Sinaloa Cartel, pitting the sons of convicted former drug lord Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, known as ‘Los Chapitos’, against followers of another detained former cartel leader, Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada.

The deadly riot on Thursday came as Donald Trump pressures the Mexican government to crack down on cartels.

In January, the US President said he will begin land strikes on drug cartels in Mexico as he warned that the only limit to his global power is his ‘own morality’.

Mr Trump announced the military action against narcoterrorists just days after the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

He said: ‘We are gonna start now hitting land with regard to the cartels.

‘The cartels are running Mexico, it’s very sad to watch and see what’s happened to that country.’

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