COLOMBO — At least 27 people were killed and a senior police officer seriously wounded in a gunfight in Sri Lanka's biggest prison that began when police came under fire from inmates, officials and police said on Saturday.

The army brought the violence under control before dawn and freed staff held hostage at the Welikada prison in the capital Colombo, jail officials and military said.

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Twenty seven people have been confirmed dead, prisons minister Chandrasiri Gajadeera told parliament.

The violence erupted when officers from the Special Task Force (STF), Sri Lanka's elite police commandos, were searching the jail for drugs and illegal mobile phones.

PhotoBlog: Dozens killed in prison gunfight with Sri Lankan police

"When they were coming out, prisoners started to attack them with stones. The STF used teargas and the prisoners fired at the STF," Police Spokesman Prishantha Jayakody said.

Witnesses said they saw police shooting toward the jail, where armed prisoners were on the roof during the clash.

Prisons Commissioner P. W. Kodippili told Reuters that the prisoners had obtained the weapons — some of them machineguns —by breaking into the prison armory.

"The search operations are continuing to clear the place and recover the weapons and also to find the escapees," he said,

Army Spokesman Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasooriya said a large number of weapons were found along with six bodies during the search operation.

The commanding officer of the elite police force that had come under attack was in intensive care, the head of Colombo National hospital said.

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"We've got 59 injured and 51 are still taking treatments and 16 are dead bodies," an official at the hospital told Reuters.

The jail has about 4,500 inmates, including members of the former defeated Tamil rebels from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) movement that fought a protracted war of independence, ending in 2009, but officials said it was unclear how many, if any, of them had been involved in the uprising.

"We don't know who is involved in this, I don't think any LTTE suspects are involved but I don't know," Commissioner Kodippili told Reuters.

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Kodippili also said the officials are taking the count of inmates to find out how many escaped.

"We don't know exactly how many have escaped now we are taking the count," Kodippili said.

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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- Sri Lankan police arrested a Chinese tourist suspected of swallowing a diamond worth $13,600 on Wednesday at the island nation's biggest international gem and jewelry exhibition.

Chow Cheng, 32, is believed to have swallowed the diamond as he inspected it at the exhibition, attended by buyers from China, Hong Kong, Thailand, India and Europe, police said.

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"His intention was to steal it," police spokesman Ajith Rohana told Reuters. "The x-ray shows the diamond is in his throat."

The Associated Press reported that the diamond was 1.5 carats.

Suresh Christopher Wijekoon, owner of the exhibition stall, said Chow had tried to switch the original diamond with a synthetic one.

"He realized that I noticed it. Then he immediately swallowed it," Wijekoon told Reuters.

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The man was taken to a hospital where he was given laxatives, an unnamed police officer told the AFP news agency, according to the BBC.

The diamond's owner, named by the BBC's Charles Haviland as Suresh de Silva, said the swallowed stone may have been the fake one, and that tests would have to be carried out to confirm which one it was.

De Silva also said that the suspect had an accomplice who tried to create a distraction, the BBC reported. It was not immediately clear what the attempted distraction was.

According to de Silva, swallowing a diamond is dangerous because its point can damage a person's intestines, the BBC reported.

The Indian Ocean island is famed for its blue sapphires, diamonds and a jewelry industry that accounted for $532 million of its export revenue in 2011.

The AP reported that the jewelry exhibition where the incident took place was called Facets Sri Lanka 2012.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Three shipping containers found in Sri Lanka stuffed with 359 elephant tusks came from Kenya, the Kenya Wildlife Service reported Thursday.

Trading in tusks is illegal, and Sri Lanka seized the cargo on Tuesday after it was detected by scans.

The containers -- which had been declared as only containing plastic waste and teak logs -- were destined for Dubai, India and Guatemala.

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A fourth container was detained before it left the country, Kenya's wildlife service said in a statement.

Poaching for elephant ivory and rhino horns has risen dramatically across Africa due to demand from Asia, where ivory is used for ornaments and horns used in traditional medicine.

The news came as the U.S. Senate held a hearing on the problem.

Last year was "the worst" in 23 years of collecting data on ivory seizures, the wildlife monitoring group TRAFFIC said in its report for 2011, with most large seizures coming from ports in Kenya or Tanzania.

The rise, said TRAFFIC's Tom Milliken, reflects "both a rising demand in Asia and the increasing sophistication of the criminal gangs behind the trafficking. Most illegal shipments of African elephant ivory end up in either China or Thailand."

Once in Asia, the documentation for illegal shipments is often changed to make it look like a local re-export, helping to hide its true origin, TRAFFIC stated.

"That’s an indication of the level of sophistication enforcement officers are up against in trying to outwit the criminal masterminds behind this insidious trade," said Milliken. "As most large-scale ivory seizures fail to result in any arrests, I fear the criminals are winning."

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On Wednesday, two suspected poachers were shot dead and 32 were arrested, the Kenya Wildlife Service reported, adding that the suspects had shot and wounded an elephant.

The service also listed four other suspected poaching incidents in the last two weeks.

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Members of Sri Lanka's military took place in a "Victory Day" parade Saturday to mark the defeat of Tamil Tiger separatists in a 25-year civil war.

The parade took place in the capital Colombo and there was also a two-minute silence in memory of 24,000 security force personnel who died during the near conflict, which ended in 2009, Sri Lanka's defense ministry said on its website.

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In an address to the nation, President Mahinda Rajapakse said he still could not dismantle military camps in the former Tamil Tiger-controlled areas, the AFP news service reported.

"The diaspora has not stopped their activities [against Sri Lanka government forces]," Rajapakse said, referring to Tamil separatists abroad, according to AFP.

"It is no secret that LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] leaders are freely operating abroad," he added. 

A U.S-backed resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Council last month urged Sri Lanka to investigate alleged abuses during the last months of the war. Rights groups claim the president is implicated in shooting fighters as they sought to surrender.

In recent months, rights workers and journalists have been targeted by a government media campaign against "traitors" it says helped the defeated guerrillas.

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