Inmates in Ecuador fought each other with guns and explosives in a riot that left 13 prisoners and a guard dead, police said Monday.

The mayhem was the latest in a series of bloodbaths to engulf gang-ridden, overcrowded prisons in a once-peaceful country now at ground zero of the violent Latin American drug trade.

An unknown number of inmates escaped in the clash between rival gangs, during which another 14 people were injured, a masked police officer identified as commander Colonel William Calle told the Ecuavisa channel.

Thirteen inmates have been recaptured.

Calle said gunfire broke out in the early morning hours, alerting prison guards and police who rushed to that part of the prison in the city of Machala, in southwest Ecuador near the Peruvian border.

One guard was killed as he

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