Inmate beaten to death, 15 injured in riot in Douala prison

A clash between groups of rioting inmates in an overcrowded prison in Cameroon's economic capital, Douala, left one prisoner dead and at least 15 seriously wounded, prison and hospital sources said on Tuesday.

A prison warder who declined to be named told IRIN that the trouble erupted on Monday in the New Bell jail when a prisoner, Ibrahim Baba, was beaten to death by a group of 30 inmates that were part of a so-called "anti-gang".

In recent years, understaffed prison authorities have resorted to creating "anti-gangs" of inmates to ensure order is maintained in the cell and prisoners are kept under control.

"Following the death of Ibrahim Baba in the prison clinic, other inmates attacked the "anti-gangs", then a mutiny began. Several people were injured by iron bars, pieces of wood and other objects which were used as arms," the warder explained.

Police intervened, shooting in the air, and calm returned to the jail, which used to be a former military camp before being converted into a prison in the 1960s.

The injured inmates, including the leader of the "anti-gang" inmates who got a nail slammed into his head during the fracas, were rushed to a nearby hospital, prison and hospital sources said.

The New Bell prison was originally supposed to house 800 inmates but some 3,100 people are now locked up there, with about a third waiting trial, according to the prison's registrar, Jean-Pierre Ayissi Biyegue. He told IRIN that the "anti-gangs" had been a considerable help in keeping order in the jail.

But at talks with regional official in the wake of the New Bell riots, prisoners called for Ayissi Biyegue to be sacked and the "anti-gangs" to be dismantled. The inmates also complained a lack of food, poor sanitary conditions in their cells and overcrowding.

The London-based International Centre For Prison Studies (ICPS) in its latest study said Cameroon had the second highest prison occupancy rate in the world after Barbados. The report also pointed out that half of the inmates were pre-trial detainees or remand prisoners.

The poor conditions of the country's prison condition has been described by the International Federation of Human Rights (FIHR) and other international human rights groups as "inhuman" and "hellish".

Until last month, Cameroon's prisons had been managed by the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization.

Human rights activists said that as a result of poor coordination between this ministry and the Ministry of Justice, prisoners had been forced to spend increasingly long periods in detention before being brought to trial.

However, in a December cabinet reshuffle, recently re-elected President Paul Biya transferred the management of prisons to the Ministry of Justice. It is hoped this will lead to an improvement in prison conditions.