Ecuador is mullling pardoning up to 2,000 inmates to provide relief at its overcrowded detention centers. This comes in the wake of a prison riot that left 118 dead and more than 79 injured earlier this week. The clashes happened at the Penitenciaria del Litoral in the southern city of Guayaquil. At least six were decapitated.

Bolivar Garzon, the director of the South American country’s SNAI prison authority, said that they will be prioritising the elderly, women, and prisoners with disabilities and terminal illnesses.

Garzon said that the country is currently home to some 39,000 inmates. Talking about the riot, Garzon said it is the latest in a growing list of prison violence in the Andean country. The riot was sparked by “a battle for control by organized crime groups.”

Another riot that happened in February and July earlier this year left 79 and 22 dead, respectively.

As per the officials, gangs are fighting over the drug trafficking route. Those gangs have connections with transnational criminal groups.

To maintain order, 3,600 police and military reinforcements have been sent to prisons across the country, Interior Minister Alexandra Vela told reporters on Friday.

The Interior Minister added that the forensic units had identified 41 of the victims and delivered a total of 21 bodies of the victims to their kin.

The authorities said the family members of the inmates gathered outside a Guayaquil morgue seeking information about their members.

Among the many, 60-year-old Eduardo Montes is waiting to get the latest news about his 25-year-old brother Vicente Montes, who was due to be released in a month.

“They sent us a photo where you can see the head of one victim, and we believe it is my brother, but we do not know if he is really dead or if he is alive,” Reuters quoted Montes as saying.

“I have hope that he is alive and that they release him.”