The death toll from an attack on a Mexican prison in northern Chihuahua state’s border city of Ciudad Juarez rose to 17, including 10 guards, the state prosecutor’s office said.
A total of 27 inmates escaped during the incident, and 13 people were injured, including 10 inmates and three officers, the prosecutor’s office said in a press release.
The attack on the medium-security Center for Social Reinsertion No. 3 occurred on early Sunday morning, when armed suspects in armored vehicles opened fire on security guards at the prison, sparking a shootout.
Mexico’s Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval said a prison search after the breakout uncovered 10 “luxury cells,” weapons, drugs and more than 1.7 million pesos (about 87,000 U.S. dollars) kept in a safe.
The attackers that stormed the prison belong to a criminal gang called Los Mexicles, which has ties to the Caborca Cartel. The escapees include their leader Ernesto Alfredo Pinon, known as “El Neto,” said Sandoval.
According to the last census, the facility houses 3,901 inmates.
