National Prison Fire, Comayagua, Honduras 2012
National Prison at Comayagua in Honduras was a medium security prison containing 857 inmates in February of 2012. As with prisons seemingly everywhere it was housing prisoners far beyond the level of its design capacity, and the overcrowding was not the only criticism of the facility. International groups and the United States Department of State had previously reported malnutrition and unsanitary living conditions in all of Honduras’ prisons. Honduras allowed conjugal visits in their prison systems and some of the casualties from the fire in February 2012 were spouses of inmates.
The fire was first detected by inmates who immediately began calling for help and to be let out of the cells in proximity to the fire. According to later reports, the calls for help were at first ignored, and several minutes elapsed before guards investigated the disturbance being made by prisoners. Once guards recognized the seriousness of the situation they began releasing prisoners and calls for outside help were sent. Firefighters and other emergency personnel did not arrive at the scene for more than forty minutes.
Several prisoners escaped the fire through the roof of the prison and fled over the walls in the confusion, drawing shots from the guards. The gunshots caused many firefighters not to enter the prison grounds, understandably not wanting to become targets of gunfire. As the fire was gradually brought under control and the inmates were in the process of being counted crowds of relatives and friends of inmates began to gather outside of the prison, demanding information. Clashes with angry relatives and police led to a riot outside of the prison.
The death toll of the National Prison Fire exceeded 360 inmates and spouses. There were some escapes from facility as a result of the fire with officials refusing to announce how many prisoners were freed by the chaos. The cause of the fire was eventually attributed to the careless discarding of smoking materials although that too remains disputed by some, who contend that the fire was deliberately set to create a diversion by escaping prisoners.
Still others claim the fire originated in a faulty electrical outlet, spreading to stored mattresses. In the aftermath of the fire it was revealed that only about 40% of the inmates held in the prison had been convicted of crimes, the remainder were still awaiting adjudication. Honduran officials claimed that recent anti-gang sweeps by the Honduran police had led to the increase in the prison population, and the sheer number of cases pending was beyond the capacity of the legal system to rapidly process. Many of the victims of the fire were being held simply on suspicion of being involved in gang activity.