Colombo: Sri Lanka has initiated steps to establish a new prison complex at an abandoned hospital near the southern port city of Galle following a two-day riot at the Negombo prison that left 28 people dead, officials said on Wednesday.
Justice Minister Harshana Nanayakkara on Tuesday issued a gazette notification, numbered 2496/10, to establish a prison at Mahamodera, a suburb of the southern port city of Galle.
Mahamodera was home to a centuries-old maternity hospital that was abandoned after suffering extensive damage in the 2004 tsunami.
Officials said it would take some time before the new prison could become operational.
The violence at the Negombo prison on July 5 and 6 that killed 28 people, including eight prison officials, was triggered by a dispute between rival groups of inmates over drugs.
Severe overcrowding became a major factor that prevented authorities from containing the clashes, officials said.
The death toll rose from 27 to 28 on Wednesday after a prison official succumbed to injuries.
The prison at Negombo – a coastal city about 35-odd kilometres north of Colombo – housed around 2,400 inmates at the time of the riot against its sanctioned capacity of 700, the prisoners' rights organisation said.
Authorities said more than 700 inmates were transferred to four prisons in other parts of the country so far.
More than 42,000 inmates are currently housed in around 60 prison institutions across the island nation, even though their combined capacity is only about 11,000, Chamika Gajanayake, media spokesperson for the Sri Lanka Department of Prisons, told reporters.
Twelve Indian fishermen lodged in the prison for alleged illegal fishing in Sri Lankan waters were safely evacuated with the assistance of the Indian High Commission in Colombo, according to an organisation working for prisoners' rights.
It also claimed that a 70-year-old Indian inmate died in the violence. However, the government officially denied that any foreign prisoner was among the dead.