GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador, April 5, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - Three inmates died in Ecuador on Tuesday in the latest burst of violence in its maximum security prison system, the government said.

The SNAI agency said the latest rioting broke out at La Roca prison in the port city of Guayaquil, a growing nerve center in the global drug trade.

After the fighting erupted, prison agents, police and the military activated security protocols with which "control was retaken," the SNAI statement said.

The maximum security facility has a capacity for some 150 inmates and was housing 23 prisoners at the time, most of them leaders of drug trafficking gangs engaged in a bloody struggle for power inside the prisons and on the streets.

Since February 2021, Ecuador has experienced several prison massacres that have left about 400 dead, many of them beheaded or burnt.