"When I heard about the clash, I thought he's only hospitalised, he will come home," said Dularika Perera, cousin of a deceased sergeant.
Perera added that her cousin, a former navy veteran, left behind a five-year-old daughter and an eight-month-old son.
Welfare advocacy groups highlighted severe overcrowding as a major factor. The Negombo facility held up to 2,600 prisoners despite a capacity of only 650.
"There are drug-related disputes inside the prisons but the government is trying to portray it as the only cause for the violence, using the public sentiment against narcotics," said Senaka Perera, President of the Committee for Rights of Prisoners.
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Perera noted that inmates had been increasingly agitated due to minimal medical care for an ongoing dengue fever outbreak within the congested facility.
