QUITO, Ecuador — A fight between inmates has left at least 15 dead and 14 injured in Ecuador’s largest prison, authorities said Tuesday.

The Litoral Penitentiary in the coastal city of Guayaquil has been the site of frequent riots and mass murders, including one in 2021 which resulted in the death of 119 inmates.

Authorities have provided few details about what sparked the latest violence. In a statement, prison officials said the police and army had been deployed to take control of the facility.

Local media reported that helicopters flew over the prison as ambulances and relatives of inmates, some of them desperately calling for their loved ones, rushed to the gates.

The mass killing is bound to shake up Ecuador’s presidential race, where current law-and-order governor Daniel Noboa has made improving security, including inside detention centers, a top priority in his bid for re-election next year.

Ecuador’s prisons have become among the deadliest in Latin America as overcrowding, corruption and lax state control have allowed gangs linked to drug traffickers from Colombia and Mexico to proliferate. Many are heavily armed with weapons smuggled in from abroad and continue to organize criminal activities behind bars.

The Litoral Penitentiary currently houses about 10,000 inmates — or double the capacity.

Ecuador’s Attorney General’s Office said it was preparing to charge nine inmates with murder stemming from the violence.

A dozen outbreaks of violence in Ecuadorian prisons have killed more than 400 people since 2001. Prison violence reflects a deteriorating security situation across the Andean nation.

Ecuador recorded a record 47 homicides per 100,000 population in 2023, up from a rate of six murders per 100,000 population in 2018.

Noboa declared a state of emergency in January and ordered the army to take control of prisons after armed men stormed and opened fire in a TV studio and thugs threatened random executions of civilians and security forces.