Unrest erupts at high-security jail in Athens
Riot police were sent to Athens’s high-security Korydallos Prison on Tuesday to quell a large brawl that broke out in the prison yard between rival groups of inmates, believed to be chiefly Afghans, that fueled unrest inside prison cells.
The fighting is said to have broken out while the inmates were on their exercise break.
According to one version of events, the brawl began when tensions peaked following an argument about the recent developments in Egypt. Other reports said that the unrest was prompted by the recent deportation of a Russian inmate.
Riot police officers were called in and fired a small amount of tear gas into the yard and then inside the prison’s C wing — which accommodates around 450 migrants, most of Arab and Asian origin — as the unrest had spread to the cells. There were no reports of any injuries during the fracas which was quickly contained by police.
Korydallos Prison holds 2,043 inmates although it was designed to accommodate 640.
