Death toll at 26 inmates from latest Brazil prison violence

Twenty-six inmates were killed in eruptions of violence inside two prisons in northern Brazil, officials said Sunday as they quelled the latest in a string of jail disturbances across the country in which more than 100 people died within two weeks.

The state security office for Rio Grande do Norte state had reported earlier in the day that there were 27 deaths, but later lowered that by one. It also said all bodies had now been counted.

At least 56 inmates killed in prison riot in northern Brazil

An attack by members of one crime gang on rival inmates touched off a riot at a prison in the northern state of Amazonas, leaving at least 56 dead, including several who were beheaded or dismembered in the worst bloodshed at a Brazilian prison since 1992.

Authorities said the riot that raged from Sunday afternoon into Monday morning grew out of a fight between two of the country's biggest crime gangs over control of prisons and drug routes in northern Brazil.