Bali prison riots continue as inmates hold on for a second night

Riots at Bali's infamous Kerobokan prison that began on Tuesday night have continued into Wednesday, as inmates took over parts of the jail, The Daily Telegraph reported. 

The riots are the second violent incident to occur at Kerobokan this week, following a stabbing on Sunday, and led to calls for the Indonesian government to deal with the overcrowding of Bali's jails and detention facilities, according to the Jakarta Globe. 

Around 400 heavily armed police and military soldiers surrounded the overcrowded prison in an attempt to regain control of the facility, which holds roughly 1,000 inmates, including 12 Australians convicted of drug smuggling, the Telegraph reported. 

"The prisoners took over the prison again, which forced security personnel to fire warning shots into the air," provincial military command spokesman Wing Handoko told the Telegraph. 

Inmates locked the jail from inside and threw stones and cement blocks at Police, National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Saud Usman Nasution said in Jakarta on Wednesday. 

Riot police forced their way into the jail yesterday to regain control of the prison and reinstall the guards to their posts, The Australian reported. Only 20 guards were on duty on Tuesday night, and they had fled in the face of overwhelming numbers of rioting inmates, according to the Globe. 

Three inmates and one officer were rushed to the hospital with rubber-bullet injuries, police told reporters. 

Fires lit during the rioting, which began around 10:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, severely damaged the prison's administrative block and at least two security gates were wrecked, according to sources, The Australian reported. 

More from GlobalPost: Inmates seize control of Bali prison

There have been a number of riots at the jail in recent years, including one triggered by a police drug raid in June, according to AFP. 

Gatot Goei, deputy program director for the Center for Detention Studies, told the Globe that overcrowding was the obvious source of the violent riots at Kerobokan. Goei said there were 1,015 people detained in Kerobokan, which is 315 percent of its total capacity, according to the directorate general for penitentiary affairs. 

“The question is why nothing has been done to handle this known overcrowding,” Gatot said in a press release.