Another 18 prisoners dead in new Honduras jail clash: military

Eighteen people were killed in Sunday afternoon violence between prisoners at a jail in central Honduras, less than two days after another 18 died in violence at a separate facility, a military spokesman told local media.

The spokesman for the combined national security force known as Fusina released a list of names of the 18 dead and two injured, saying that "firearms, knives and machetes" were used in the clash in El Porvenir prison north of the capital Tegucigalpa.

The violence followed overnight unrest earlier in the weekend at a facility in the northern port town of Tela that killed 18 inmates and wounded 16 others.

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, grappling with a recent wave of prison killings, had ordered the army and the police on Tuesday to take full control of the country's 27 prisons, which are badly overcrowded with some 21,000 inmates.

On Saturday, top military officer General Tito Livio Moreno indicated that the military would be deployed in 18 penal centers identified as "high risk."