TEGUCIGALPA, May 3 (Reuters) - At least 17 inmates died in a riot at a Honduran prison, the second such incident in the country's overcrowded jail system in just over a week.

Security Ministry spokesman Hector Ivan Mejia told Reuters on Saturday police eventually took control of the National Penitentiary facility, Honduras' main prison, after the riot broke out on Friday.

Last Saturday, nine prisoners were killed with machetes and knives during a riot at another prison in the northern city of San Pedro Sula.

The small Central American country's jail system of 25 prisons is overflowing with some 12,000 inmates. Fights are frequent as members of street gangs, known as maras, struggle to gain control inside the penitentiaries.

The streets of Honduras' main cities are blighted by maras, often involved in drug and weapons trafficking. (Reporting by Gustavo Palencia; Writing by Cyntia Barrera Diaz; Editing by Eric Walsh)

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