TIJUANA – The state prison in Tijuana remained locked down yesterday, two days after inmates rioted for 12 hours, and the death toll rose to four when an injured inmate died yesterday afternoon at a hospital.

As they have since the riot broke out at 2 p.m. Sunday, more than 1,000 relatives continued their vigil outside the La Mesa State Penitentiary.

They stood behind barriers set up by police, who blocked access to the street in front of the main gate. Some of the relatives are taking turns sleeping outside the prison overnight.

No official with the Baja California government has explained to them what happened inside the chronically overcrowded prison or told them when they will be able to see their relatives inside the facility.

On Monday, state authorities announced that the prison's two commanders were being sought and a prison guard had been arrested. All are suspected of beating an inmate to death Saturday, which appears to have helped spark the riot.

All government offices were closed yesterday for Mexican Independence Day, and no official comments on the uprising were released.

The director of the Baja California Human Rights office, Francisco Javier Sánchez Corona, toured the prison yesterday. He described the mood inside as calm, and he said kitchen service and access to drinking water had been re-established.

He said he had not been allowed to see all the cells and didn't know the condition of all the inmates.

Partly because of the lack of communication with inmates, rumors have circulated among the waiting relatives. Many were inside the prison Sunday, a visiting day.

“We don't believe there were only three dead and so few hurt. I saw it myself, the horror, when I left the prison at 9 p.m. on Sunday. There were a lot of inmates without shirts, wounded, sprawled out on the ground,” said Irma Yakuta, 49, whose son is an inmate.

About two dozen inmates were injured in the riot.

An injured prisoner who was taken to Tijuana's General Hospital after police and soldiers regained control of the prison died yesterday afternoon, according to a law enforcement official.

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Omar Millán González is a contributor to the Union-Tribune's Spanish-language newspaper, Enlace.