Clashes between drug gangs on Thursday claimed at least 17 lives in the second deadly riot in an Ecuadoran prison in days, with rampaging inmates beheading and maiming rivals, officials in the violence-wracked country said.

Bloody fighting broke out in a prison in the troubled coastal city of Esmeraldas, near the Colombian border, where police said they found 10 dead prisoners in two cell blocks — adding to about 500 inmates massacred in the country since 2021.

Images shared on social media and verified by Agence France-Presse showed dead men sprawled on the ground with bare, blood-stained torsos, at least two of them decapitated.

Dozens of worried family members gathered outside the prison for news of their loved ones Thursday as the SNAI prison authority raised the official toll from

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