The nearest thing to a prison

From the street, Guinea-Bissau’s so-called ‘high-security detention centre’ looks like a quaint, albeit rundown, Portuguese house, with a knee-high fence and a row of painted rose tiles running below the roof. But down a precariously steep staircase, 22 young inmates live in filth and darkness in three underground cells.

See slideshow: Prisoners Underground

There is no light or electricity inside. “We don’t even have candles,” one inmate whispered to IRIN during a tour.

Apart from another small building where police temporarily hold an unknown number of prisoners, this is the nearest thing to a penitentiary in the country of 1.6 million people.

Authorities brought the inmates out of their cells to the only area where light was able to filter in through a narrow opening above.

Water drips from leaking pipes onto walls covered in graffiti. “I am sick and need medicine,” said one of the young men, weak kneed and yellowed by jaundice.

In a room upstairs are two women inmates. One lay on a mattress next to a man she said was her husband.

Photo: David Hecht/IRIN

An inmate sitting outside his unlit, unfurnished underground cell which he shares with seven other prisoners

An inmate sitting outside his unlit, unfurnished underground cell which he shares with seven other prisoners.

The room adjacent is the guards’ sleeping quarters, the director of the facility Paulo Albino said. “The guards and women prisoners share the same bathroom.”

Impunity rules

Few criminals in Guinea Bissau will ever see the squalid conditions inside this jail.

Despite a number of reports of Latin American drug cartels operating in the country, and the seizing of drugs worth tens of millions of dollars in recent months, none of the inmates at the facility have been charged with involvement in the drugs trade.

Guinea Bissau is also experiencing a wave of violent crime, including armed robberies, and some locals allege political motivated assassinations and beatings - but none of the inmates at the facility were charged with these crimes either.

Acting head of detention under the ministry of justice Augusto Nhaga, showed IRIN around the detention centre, where he said convicted criminals share cells with people who have not yet been to trial.

Pointing to a boy lying on a dirty piece of foam on the floor he said: “His uncle brought him here, accusing him of stealing.”

The alleged petty thief lay next to a feeble looking inmate named Sumba, who had a deep scar running from his chin to his chest. “After killing his neighbour, Sumba tried to commit suicide by slitting his own throat,” said Albino.

“That left him too weak to attend the sentencing hearing,” he said.

“Serious criminals have complete impunity in this country,” said Jamel Handem, who heads an association of NGOs called Placon-GB. “We have many crimes but few criminals.”

Guinea Bissau’s minister of justice Namuano Gomes told IRIN the lack of proper facilities is the reason so few criminals get locked up.

“We don’t have a proper prison in this country,” he said. “So even when we prosecute someone we don’t have the means to keep them there for much longer than a year.”

No escape

Even when prisoners are locked up in the tiny jail, human rights observers say they can easily pay their way out.

Upstairs from the airless underground cells, 12 inmates were free to walk around. One sat in the street chatting with his mother.

“We sometimes see prisoners walking around town in the middle of the day,” said Handem.

None of the seven guards on duty carry arms. “They’re each issued with pistols but they don’t need to wear them at this time,” said the detention official Nhaga

“We know the ones who want to escape,” he said.

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