Escuintla, Guatemala ? Members of a violent Central American gang on Tuesday claimed they routinely pay prison guards to provide them with weapons, and they blamed a rival group for starting the riots that left 31 inmates dead.

Interviewed as they recovered from gunshot and stab wounds, members of the Mara 18 blamed Monday’s near-simultaneous uprisings at Guatemalan prisons on the rival Mara Salvatrucha gang. Gangs are known as “maras” in Central America.

Mara 18 gang members recovering at the Escuintla Hospital said the two gangs are always fighting each other and that guards help them by providing them with weapons in exchange for bribes.

“(The guards) are very easy to buy,” said 24-year-old Ismael Lopez, one of at least 26 gang members stabbed, shot or beaten at three prisons in Escuintla, a provincial capital 30 miles south of Guatemala City.

Officials did not respond immediately to the allegations. Interior Minister Carlos Vielmann said earlier Tuesday that prison visitors smuggled in guns and passed along messages to inmates in other facilities, while some of the prisoners used cell phones to help launch the riots.