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A former drug mule who was sentenced to 10 years in a notorious Venezuelan prison has recalled witnessing a violent three day war between inmates, before she made a miraculous escape.
Natalie Welsh began carrying drugs for gangs after she claimed they showed her kindness during a rough upbringing.
Eventually, Natalie was caught smuggling five kilograms of cocaine into Venezuela, and was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in a notorious South American prison.
She was sent to San Antonio, a mixed prison located on Margarita Island near the coast of Venezuela, and she has now recalled some of the violent scenes she witnessed.
Speaking to LadBible TV, she said inmates would patrol the prison themselves with "shotguns" and their power soon spilled into violence.
“One day, there was this war and it went on for three days,” she recalled.
During this time, Natalie remembered seeing guards carrying the injured and bodies of the dead through large holes in prison walls, while officers and emergency services refused to intervene.
“This was going on 24 hours a day, it just didn’t stop for three days, and it was so intense. You’ve got 1000 men trying to kill each other, and probably about 20 guards, maybe a few more outside. So as long as the men aren’t trying to get out of prison, the guards just left them to it,” she suggested.
“The ambulance from the hospitals outside can’t come in… They can’t come in and get the bodies out because everybody’s killing each other, there’s just bullets flying everywhere.
“This went on for three days until eventually they just wore themselves out or ran out of ammo.”
Eventually, Natalie was transferred to a different prison where common violence continued, but not to the same extent.
And, settling in more comfortably to her new surroundings and dreaming of a return to normality, the UK citizen even found love with one of her guards.
The pair fell in love and he even jokingly said to her: "Maybe one day I can help you escape from here."
But it soon turned into more than a joke as, after they had been together for two years, the couple began hatching a plan for her escape.
The former drug smuggler described how she had been entitled to day release trips, so with the help of her prison guard boyfriend, she arranged the suitable paperwork that would enable her to leave the prison, and dash for the Colombian border.
Having successfully made it to Colombia, Natalie was then able to relocate back to the UK as she hadn’t committed the crime in England.
From there Natalie, accompanied by her boyfriend Jose, was able to get her life back on track, finding work and writing a book about her story.
“I’d just broken out of jail in Venezuela. That really empowered me because I thought if I could do that, then I can achieve anything,” she said.
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