The Police in Madagascar has recaptured 11 out of the 31 prisoners who escaped from a prison in the southeastern part of the country on Sunday.
The police and army were deployed to Farafanga prison when dozens of prisoners turned against guards with rocks and a stolen gun.
The police opened fire, killing 20 inmates while eight were wounded in the shoot-out.
The justice ministry said 19 prisoners were still at large.
Reports said 88 had managed to escape but some 37 prisoners were immediately recaptured and returned to the prison while 31 were on the run.
Mass prison escapes are not uncommon in Madagascar. In 2016 around 40 detainees broke out from a high-security prison in Toliary in the south of the country.
A 2018 Amnesty International report of Madagascar’s prisons says “people accused of a crime are routinely put in prison pending trial” and can wait “for a trial for years, with little or no information on their cases” leading “to the extraordinary situation where Madagascar’s prisons hold more people who have not been convicted than those found guilty.”