Alarm over lack of care leading to 16 prison deaths

Human rights activists in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have condemned the death by starvation and lack of medical care of 16 inmates in a congested prison in Mbuji-Mayi, capital of the central province of Kasai Orientale.

"The state has failed in its obligations because there are laws, national and international, which require it to feed and care for prisoners," said Jean-Marie Eley Lofele of the NGO Association Internationale des Avocats de la Défense et du Reseau des Droits Humains au Congo.

The deaths occurred between 1 January and 19 February and included remand prisoners.

"The government is impeding the proper functioning of the justice system from arrest to trial, through preventive detention, which must not exceed 40 days. The state must provide food and healthcare to suspects," Eley added.

In February, President Joseph Kabila retired some senior judges, and, according to the minister in charge of justice and human rights, Mutombo Bakawa Senda, one of the reasons for the president's action was the slow pace of the administration of justice in DRC.

The UN Mission in Congo (MONUC) attributed the deaths to malnutrition, starvation and lack of healthcare.

"Nine of the dead had been sentenced and seven were remand prisoners," said Kemal Saiki, MONUC spokesman. "This is a new wave of deaths after a substantial decline during the period of deployment of an international adviser and a prisons specialist by MONUC's rule of law section from the summer of 2006 to the beginning of January 2008," said Saiki.

That prison is really not adequate for a city with a population of 3.5 million people. It should be relocated and enlarged

The governor of Kasai, Nogy Kasandji, acknowledged the problem of a lack of food and healthcare for prisoners in the province, saying there was no provision in the province’s budget for such expenditure.

"That prison is really not adequate for a city with a population of 3.5 million people. It should be relocated and enlarged," he said. The prison was designed to accommodate 100 inmates, but now holds 398 people - 387 men and 11 women.

"There certainly have been many cases of deaths in recent times, but we are trying to work with the provincial minister who has intervened several times to feed prisoners, but food has been out of stock for three weeks," said Kasandji, adding that he had informed the central government of the situation in the prison, but it had not responded.

According to MONUC, violations of human rights are commonplace in almost all prisons in the DRC.

"Each visitor has to pay between 200 and 500 Congolese francs (36-91 US cents) to have access to his prisoner, and if he has brought any food, a guard can ask for 500 francs," said Saiki.

"The prison in Mbuji-Mayi does not meet the minimum UN standards for the treatment of prisoners. It is filthy, smelly and exposes inmates to diseases like scabies and lice," he added.

According to MONUC, preventive detention is routinely used in both civil and military courts in DRC even for minor offences. Suspects can languish in jail for months before they are tried.

"Generally, it is the rich whose cases are heard very quickly, not those involving the poor," said Eley.

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