Sao Paulo, May 26 (IANS): The prison riot that broke out over the weekend in the Brazilian state of Bahia ended late Monday with nine inmates dead, four injured and about 70 people freed who had been held hostage by the prisoners, authorities said.

Prison directors announced that a commission of councilors and representatives of human-rights organisations came to an agreement with the rioting prisoners for the gradual release of the hostages and the admission of police, who took the inmates to their cells and searched the facility, reports Efe.

The uprising in Cell Block 10 of the Regional Penitentiary of Feira de Santana, a municipality some 117 km from Salvador, the regional capital, erupted on Sunday when a group of inmates seized family members, including women and children, to prevent them from leaving the facility after visiting their imprisoned relatives.

According to preliminary reports, eight prisoners were killed, one by decapitation, but later another prisoner died of his wounds at a nearby hospital, leaving a total of nine fatalities.

Prison director Cleriston Leite told reporters that the riot was sparked by a dispute between rival criminal gangs following the deaths of two ringleaders.

The four inmates who were injured were taken to a hospital in the city.

The jail currently holds 1,467 prisoners, though it was designed with a capacity for only 644, according to Bahia's Penitentiary Administration Secretariat.

The overcrowding of Brazilian prisons has been one of the factors indicated by international organisations as a leading cause of the seemingly endless rioting.