“The provisional human toll is 129 dead, including 24 who were shot after warnings,” minister Jacquemain Shabani said in a video message, adding that at least 59 others had been wounded at the Makala prison in the capital, Kinshasa.

His ministry said several people had been crushed or suffocated and a number of women had been raped.

Witnesses told AFP gunfire had started at the prison at around 2:00 am on Monday morning and lasted for several hours.

Daddi Soso, an electrician in his 40s living in the capital, reported seeing security force vehicles taking bodies away in the early hours.

The authorities gave no indication as to how many inmates had escaped or attempted to do so, but at mid-morning on Monday government spokesman Patrick Muyaya told national television the situation was “under control”.

© AFP