Around 10 inmates and guards were
taken to hospital early on Tuesday to be treated for smoke
inhalation after prisoners set fire to mattresses in their cells
during a riot at a jail on the north-eastern city of Gorizia
overnight.
None of the people taken to hospital are in a life-threatening
condition, the sources said.
The riot is only the latest in a series of recent disturbances
at Italy's prisons, amid alarm about overcrowding, a problem
that especially acute during the heatwaves the country has been
having, and the high number of inmate suicides.
Prison-rights association Antigone said in a report presented in
Rome on Tuesday that Italy's prisons "are exploding".
The report said the official overcrowding rate at Italy's
prisons of around 120% is too low because it fails to account
for the over 4,000 places that are not currently available.
It said the real overcrowding rate is over 130%, with the
nation's jails holding 14,000 more inmates than the number they
have places for.
The report said the overcrowding rate was over 150% in 56 jails
and over 190% in eight, while only 38 did not suffer
overcrowding.
Antigone said the prisons had 61,480 inmates on June 30,
compared to an official capacity of 51,234.
It said there have been 58 suicides in Italian prisons since the
start of the year, including nine so far in July.
"If this pace continues, there is a risk that by the end of the
year we will surpass the tragic record of 2022 which, with 85
cases, went down in history as the year with the most suicides
ever," it said.
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