By IANS,
Ankara : Inmates of a prison in southeastern Turkey set ablaze their jail Sunday morning, local media reported.
According to Today’s Zaman newspaper website, the incident took place at a prison in Mardin province. It could not be immediately ascertained how many people exactly had been taken to hospitals after three ambulances arrived at the venue.
Firemen later extinguished the fire in the prison, where some of the convicts have close links to a pro-Kurdish party, the report said.
According to the province’s deputy Governor Mufit Gultekin, the convicts started the fire in four wards of the prison to protest incidents in southeastern province of Diyarbakir.
On Saturday, Diyarbakir riot police fired water cannon and teargas as they clashed with stone-pelting protesters supporting the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK).
The PKK, listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and the European Union, took up arms in 1984 to create an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey. Since then over 40,000 people have been killed in conflicts involving the group.