Twenty-five people were killed during a prison riot and dozens were wounded when two groups of inmates waged a gunbattle inside the penitentiary while hundreds of relatives were visiting, the Associated Press reported, citing Venezuelan officials.


The violence erupted at Yare I prison south of Caracas on Sunday, and at least one of those slain was a relative of an inmate, said Iris Varela, the government's prisons minister.


It was the latest and one of the deadliest in a series of bloody clashes that have flared in Venezuela's overcrowded prisons and become a major problem for President Hugo Chavez's government.


Varela told state television Monday afternoon that 17 of the 25 dead had been identified so far. She said some of them had been shot in the head. Forty-three other people were wounded, including 29 inmates and 14 visiting relatives, Varela said.
About 980 women who were at the prison to see inmates when the fighting broke out were still inside, she said.


Armed inmates still held control of the prison Monday night, and some of the relatives stayed inside due to fears about how security forces outside would react, said Humberto Prado, an activist and director of the watchdog group Venezuelan Prisons Observatory.


Varela indicated the situation had stabilized Monday and said authorities planned to talk with inmates "to try to impose order there."


Varela said the riot apparently began when a gun went off while armed inmates were talking in a workshop and administrative area. She said those behind the killings "are going to have to answer for this."


Carlos Nieto, an activist who monitors human rights in Venezuelan prisons, said the gunbattle lasted about four hours and involved groups fighting for control.


Yajaira Morroy, the mother of a 27-year-old inmate at the prison, said her son suffered a gunshot wound in a leg and had been trying to help a relative of another inmate who was wounded and then died. She said her son managed to reach a guard post and was taken to a hospital.


Morroy said during a telephone interview that the situation inside the prison had calmed and that some relatives who had been stranded inside were able to come out. But she said that armed inmates were in control and that National Guard troops had not gone inside.


Nationwide, the group has said that 560 people were killed in Venezuelan prisons last year and that the pace of the violence increased during the first half of this year, with at least 304 inmates killed.


Venezuela currently has 33 prisons built to hold about 12,000 inmates, but officials have said the prisons' population is about 47,000.