Police say 200 inmates recaptured after Ecuador prison 'massacre'

Ecuadorian police on Tuesday said 200 convicts who escaped following a deadly prison riot have been recaptured in 24 hours, with 20 still at large.

At least 44 inmates died after a fight broke out Monday between the rival Los Lobos and R7 gangs at Bellavista prison in Santo Domingo de los Colorados, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Quito.

Ten more were injured, according to police.

Authorities had initially said that 108 prisoners got away.

"A total of 220 citizens escaped yesterday and at this moment we have recaptured 200," said police chief of operations Geovanny Ponce, giving an update Tuesday.

He said the government was offering up to $3,000 for information leading to the recapture of the remaining 20 fugitives.

Soldiers were deployed to help search for escapees, and reporters saw security forces rounding up about 80 people believed to have been among those recaptured.

Distraught relatives of inmates waited for news outside the Bellavista prison on Tuesday.

Ponce said 41 of the dead inmates had been identified so far, and two of them were Venezuelan.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, via spokeswoman Liz Throssell, on Tuesday expressed "deep alarm at recurring prison violence" in Ecuador.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights also condemned the violence and urged the government to launch a "prompt, serious and impartial" investigation.