A fight broke out in the early hours of Sunday morning between guards and prisoners, who started a fire by setting mattresses alight, a government spokesman told Mexican television news.
The prison was later secured, the spokesman told television channel Milenio.
Powerful drug cartels are fighting for control of smuggling routes along the U.S.-Mexico border and rivalries often spread into the prison system, where prisoners held on federal drug charges are mixed with common criminals.
A fight between rival gangs in another prison in the north of the country left 31 inmates dead in January and a further 13 wounded.
About 50,000 people have died in Mexico in the past five years since President Felipe Calderon launched a frontal attack on drug gangs. Packed and inefficient prisons are plagued with corruption and mass escapes.(*)
Editor: Kunto Wibisono
Copyright © ANTARA 2012
