Some 1,685 “seriously ill” inmates have been released from one of the most notorious prisons in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the latest move to tackle overcrowding.
The release began at Makala Prison in the capital, Kinshasa, on Sunday.
It was there, at the beginning of this month, that 129 prisoners died in an attempted jailbreak. Some were shot dead by security forces while others were killed in a crush, officials said.
The government pledged to speed up its plans to decongest the prison, where conditions have been described as “true hell”.
Some of the inmates identified for release can be seen in a series of images published on the justice ministry’s Facebook page, external.
In one, an emaciated-looking man with dirty bandages around his right foot and below the knee is being pushed in a wheelbarrow.
In another, showing dozens of men all appearing malnourished, one of those in the foreground has an open wound.
In a video, a prisoner, who seems unable to stand up, is shouting that he is going to change his life and no longer cause pain to others. He also praises the official responsible, Justice Minister Constant Mutamba.
Mutamba said that those who needed medical attention would be treated while others would be sent home on buses provided by the government, the AP news agency reports.
The minister had already ordered the release of hundreds of others from Makala as he tries to get the prison population down. He has also banned the transfer of new inmates to the prison.
With a population of at least 14 million people , Kinshasa has two jails. In addition to Makala, the military prison of N’dole has an official capacity of 500.
Emmanuel Adu Cole, head of the Bill Clinton Foundation for Peace, a local NGO that focuses on prison conditions, welcomed the release, but added that more needed to be done to address the problems inside.
The jail, which was built in the 1950s, has a capacity for 1,500 inmates, but before this month’s attempted jailbreak it was holding at least 12,000 people, according to various estimates.
One former inmate told the BBC that conditions inside were “true hell”.
“Makala is not a prison, but a detention centre resembling a concentration camp, where people are sent to die,” Stanis Bujakera said.
Videos that he secretly filmed inside showed how tightly packed everyone was, as well as the inadequacy of the daily rations.
The authorities have long acknowledged the overcrowding problem.
Some officials have blamed magistrates for sending suspects to prison. In 2020, it was estimated that only 6% of the prisoners were actually serving sentences – the rest were stuck in DR Congo’s legal system where cases can drag on for years.
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