GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador, July 24, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - Rival gangs fought in a prison in Ecuador, leaving at least five inmates dead in the latest riot to hit the troubled penal system, the government said Sunday.

Another 11 prisoners were injured in the new bout of violence in the Guayas prison in the port city of Guayaquil overnight Saturday into Sunday, the agency that runs the prison system said.

Mass killings featuring stunning levels of violence such as beheadings are common in the overcrowded Ecuadoran prison network.

The riots pit gangs with links to drug traffickers against each other in this country that has emerged as a key player in the South American cocaine trade.

Authorities say drug-gang violence has claimed at least 420 lives since 2021.

Guayaquil, on Ecuador's southern Pacific coast, is the country's largest city, biggest port and economic hub, but in recent years has become the increasingly bloody center of a gang turf war.

The location of the city, home to three million of Ecuador's 18 million people, makes it a strategic launch point for shipments of drugs to the United States and Europe.

The overcrowded prisons in Ecuador have become among the most violent in Latin America.

Tucked between Colombia and Peru, the world's main cocaine producers, Ecuador has seized 455 tons of drugs since President Guillermo Lasso took office in May 2021.