Brazil Faces Second Prison Break in One Week [Watch]
Brazil has experienced its second mass prison break in a single week.
As the BBC reports, 40 prisoners escaped from a jail in the eastern Brazilian city of Recife on Jan. 23 when a bomb blew out a hole in an external wall.
Although most of the prisoners were recaptured, two were killed during the ensuing manhunt and one still remains at large.
The incident follows another prison break on Jan. 20, when 53 men escaped from another jail along the outskirts of the city. Out of this group of escaped inmates, only 13 were recaptured.
Video footage captured the moment the external wall of the Frei Damiao de Bozanno prison blew up, and the images were later broadcast on Brazilian TV. Immediately before the explosion, a man was seen walking up to the prison wall and leaving a package. Moments after the explosion, dozens of men were seen escaping.
Newsweek reports that because of staff shortages only half of the prison’s observation towers were being manned when the explosion occurred.
According to the prison guard's union, a breakout was inevitable. The union asserted that the state of Pernambuco, where Recife is located, employs only around 1,500 prison guards when the number should be closer to 5,000.
The union added that Frei Damiao de Bozanno in particular is an extremely overcrowded prison.
Last year, 26 prisoners escaped from a prison in the small city of Nova Mutum. Two women donned erotic police officer outfits and succeeded in seducing the guards, distracting them from the ensuing breakout.
As CNN reports, Willian Fidelis, a spokesman for Brazil's Justice Secretariat, said that officials discovered bottles of spiked whiskey, as well as a pair of skimpy police costumes, next to the prison guards, who were found handcuffed and unconscious.
"We assume that is what the women were wearing when they seduced the guards," Fidelis said.