COLOMBO: Clashes in a Sri Lankan jail killed 26 people, including seven guards, and wounded more than 100 in the country’s deadliest prison riot in years, officials said on Monday.

Victims with cuts and gunshot injuries were rushed to Negombo Hospital, north of the capital Colombo following overnight fighting between inmates from two drug gangs, police said.

Hospital director Pushpa Gamlath said there were 23 bodies at the state-run facility, as well as more than 100 wounded inmates and guards from Negombo Prison.

“There are some victims with gunshot injuries, some with cuts and severe bruises,” Gamlath said by telephone. “We transferred 18 of the more seriously wounded to the Colombo National hospital.” Justice Minister Harshana Nanayakkara later said three more people had died, raising the toll to 26.

He expressed “profound shock and grief”, and said authorities were working to separate the rival gangs in the prison. “Whether they were inmates, or associated with the underworld, is not relevant to us at this moment,” Nanayakkara told reporters in Colombo.

“Human beings have died, and there is a deep shock regarding that. This is something that should never have occurred.” He said fighting began on Sunday evening at Negombo Prison, which houses several thousand inmates.

As reports of the fighting spread, women inmates in an adjoining section climbed onto a roof and demanded their release. Police said part of the roof collapsed, injuring some of the women.

Gajanayake said some inmates attempted to break out on Monday morning, as others clashed with armed guards during breakfast. “They made a dash to the main gate, but we were able to hold them back,” Gajanayake told reporters outside the prison, where police and commandos were deployed.

The government announced it was setting up a three-member team headed by a retired Supreme Court justice to investigate the riot.

‘Got out of hand’

Prison spokesman Chaminda Gajanayake said no foreign inmates were affected by the riots. A 22-year-old British woman has been held at Negombo since her arrest in May last year at the international airport with 46 kilos (101.2 pounds) of kush, a highly potent form of cannabis.

Armed police or commandos were not sent into the prison, but only guarded the perimeter. A photographer outside the prison saw prison buses transferring some inmates out of the facility. Officials confirmed they were being relocated to other prisons.

Large crowds of relatives of inmates gathered outside Negombo Prison on Monday as the air force deployed drones and a helicopter to monitor the area. Local residents said they heard gunshots. The inmates had grabbed several guns from guards earlier in the day.

Seven guards were killed when they tried to break up the rioting on Monday, a police official told AFP. “The situation got out of hand this morning,” he added. In December 2020, rioting at another prison in Sri Lanka killed 11 inmates and wounded 117 during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, leading the government to release hundreds of inmates from overcrowded jails.

Official data showed that prisons across Sri Lanka held 41,250 inmates as of Sunday, about four times their capacity.

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2026