Drugs gang 'kills 33 inmates' in Brazilian jail

A graveyard worker digs a grave before the funeral of one of the inmates who died during a prison riot, at the cemetery of Taruma in Manaus, Brazil, January 4, 2017. (REUTERS)

At last 33 inmates have been killed in a new prison uprising in the Amazon region of Brazil, officials said Friday, just five days after 56 inmates were slaughtered in a nearby state in the country's worst prison massacre for more than two decades.

The local secretary of Justice Uziel Castro told the BBC he blamed the deaths in the prison in the state of Roraima on a drug gang.

He said some bodies had been found decapitated after the incident in the Penitenciária Agrícola de Monte Cristo.

But the situation was now under control, he added.

Sunday's 17-hour prison uprising in Manaus was the deadliest in Brazil in years.

Officials say police have managed to recapture 40 of the 87 prisoners who escaped.

However, experts had predicted more violence in Brazil's gang-controlled prison system in the wake of the massacre earlier this week, which saw members of one drug gang butcher inmates from a rival criminal group.

Reuters contributed to this report.