Escaped prisoners worry Burkina, Liberia

Police in Liberia’s Maryland County have re-arrested 22 suspected criminals whom, a senior security officer said, had escaped from jail in Cote d’Ivoire during the military takeover on 24 December, Star radio reported. Peter Nimely, joint security commander in the south-eastern town of Harper on Liberia’s border with Cote d’Ivoire, said the suspects included several Liberians, five Guineans and a Ghanaian, Star said. According to local and international media reports, some 6,500 prisoners escaped from the main prison in Abidjan when mutineers freed political detainees there on 24 December. In Burkina Faso, Police Director General Palguim Sambare said on Wednesday that the Burkinabe authorities were worried by the jailbreak, according to AFP. The reason for their concern was that some of the escapees were Burkinabe and since they were on police files in Cote d’Ivoire, they were likely to go to Burkina Faso, AFP reports Sambare as saying. He said he had taken various measures at the country’s borders to try and capture criminals trying to return to Burkina Faso.