Overview
- A two‑day clash between rival inmate groups at Negombo Prison on July 5–6 left officials reporting between 26 and 28 people dead and more than 100 wounded.
- Justice officials say the violence began after some prisoners leaked information about efforts to smuggle drugs into the jail and inmates then seized improvised weapons and damaged CCTV and scanners.
- Authorities have transferred more than 700 inmates to other facilities, and officials estimate infrastructure losses at over LKR 100 million after damage to cameras, body scanners, medicine stores and administrative buildings.
- The Justice Ministry issued a gazette order to convert an abandoned Mahamodera hospital in Galle into a prison to provide quick relief for severely overcrowded facilities.
- Sri Lanka holds roughly 42,000 prisoners against a combined sanctioned capacity near 11,000, and human rights groups and multiple official probes are now examining how smuggling, armory access and monitoring lapses combined to produce the high death toll and what reforms will follow.