At least six inmates died and eight guards were taken hostage in a brawl that soon turned into a riot at a prison in the southwestern Venezuelan state of Tachira on the Colombian border, state officials said.

“A fight broke out between several inmates sparked by overcrowding, a dispute between rival gangs and because police were slow to act,” the secretary of the Tachira state government, Julio Cesar Hernandez, told Efe.

“Six individuals lost their lives” in the rioting, and now inmates “are holding eight guards hostage,” Hernandez said.