Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/AZAZ: At least 20 prisoners escaped a northwestern Syria prison on Monday following a deadly earthquake.
The jail was holding mostly Daesh group members, authorities said.
According to the Arab News, the source said that the military police prison in the town of Rajo near the Turkey border is holding about 2,000 inmates, with about 1,300 of them suspected to be Daesh militant fighters.
The prison holds fighters from Kurdish-led armed forces.
Prisoners escape prison
An official at Rajo jail said that “after the deadly earthquake struck, Rajo had affected, and inmates started to mutiny, took control of part of the prison, and escaped.”
The official said that about 20 prisoners who were believed to be Daesh militants fled the prison.”
The source said that the 7.8-magnitude earthquake caused damage to the prison, with jail walls and doors cracking.
The British-based Syrian Observatory said it couldn’t verify whether prisoners had escaped, but confirmed mutiny.
The government said that at least 1,444 citizens died on Monday across Syria after the devastating deadly earthquake that had its epicenter in southwestern Turkey.
The White Helmets rescue group said that in the rebel-held part of the northwest, several citizens were killed and more than 2,100 wounded.
The incident in Rajo comes on the heels of a Daesh attack in December on the security complex in their former de-facto Syrian capital of Raqqa, which aimed to free fellow terrorists from prison there.
