jail - The African Mirror

Apr

2024

Dozens escape from jail in Comoros capital

DOZENS of prisoners escaped from a prison in the Comoros capital Moroni by walking out of the main gate, the public prosecutor and government said. The escape of 38 inmates from Moroni Prison, the Indian Ocean island archipelago's largest penitentiary, was caused by the negligence of security guards, public prosecutor Ali Mohamed Djounaid told Reuters in a phone message. "The prisoners took the opportunity to escape through the normal gate," Djounaid said, adding that authorities had started an investigation into what happened. Government spokesperson Houmed Msaidie said the escape appeared to have been pre-planned.

Mar

2024

By PORTIA CROWE and NGOUDA DIONE

After months in jail, Senegalese family vows to vote out ruling party

NEWS

WHEN Aramata Djiba was arrested and taken with her four-month-old baby to a maximum security prison in Senegal's capital Dakar, she said she felt it was the "end of the world". "I had no hope... I cried for a week," said the 29-year-old kindergarten teacher. She said she shared a cell, and a single toilet, with more than 40 other women for six months. Djiba, who was indicted in September alongside five of her relatives on criminal charges the family say were politically motivated, was released this week under a new amnesty law. Djiba is elated to be free, but nonetheless…

Mar

2023

By The African Mirror

Two guards killed in gunfire as four break out of Mauritania jail

NEWS

FOUR detainees escaped from the central prison in Mauritania's capital, Nouakchott, during a breakout in which two soldiers were killed in the gunfire, the interior ministry said on Monday, describing the four as "terrorists". The ministry did not identify the escapees or say why they were in prison but it said an exchange of gunfire followed their late Sunday breakout and two national guard members were killed and two were wounded. The national guard had secured the prison and was in pursuit of the four, the ministry said. The arid West African country has been spared the kind of violence…

Sep

2021

By The African Mirror

Zuma’s medical parole: Opposition parties unhappy

NEWS

AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER SOUTH African opposition parties have expressed their unhappiness at the decision to grant medical parole to the country’s former president Jacob Zuma and have called for transparency and accountability. Zuma, 79, has served two of his 15 months prison sentence and has been in hospital for over two weeks after he underwent surgery. The Democratic Alliance (DA), the official opposition has called the decision to grant Zuma medical parole unlawful and wants the man who took the decision, Arthur Fraser, the Commissioner of Correctional Services, to be hauled to parliament to explain himself. DA leader John Steenhuysen…

Aug

2020

By The African Mirror

Uganda’s prisoner population surges, raising fears of COVID-19 outbreak

COVID-19

ELIAS BIRYABAREMA UGANDA has recorded a 10% increase in the number of people in jail since March, a prison official told Reuters on Friday, with thousands jailed for alleged violations of coronavirus lockdown rules. By imposing one of Africa's strictest lockdowns, the country of 42 million has registered just 1,213 COVID-19 cases and five deaths from the disease, despite crumbling public hospitals, doctors' strikes and corruption scandals. But there have been at least three cases of the novel coronavirus in jails, fuelling concerns it could spread among prisoners. About 30 inmates who feared infection have escaped since the pandemic hit…