Prisoners on lam in Congo
OWN CORRESPONDENTS
LOng-plagued by corruption and inept government, people in the Democratic Republic of Congo were confronting a new problem on Friday: thousands of prisoners on the lam, including hard-core felons and possibly war criminals.
In what appears to have been the biggest prison break in the African country, nearly 4 200 inmates were missing from its most notorious jail, the maximum-security Makala prison in Kinshasa, the capital.
The prison break itself was not news – it happened on Wednesday, when members of a cultish rebel group known as Bundu Dia Kongo stormed a cellblock to free their leader.
But government officials insisted at the time that only a few dozen prisoners had escaped with him.
It took two days for the scope and violent nature of the escape to become clear, in what amounts to an enormous embarrassment for the country’s unpopular leader, Joseph Kabila.
The missing prisoners represented more than half the overcrowded prison’s population of 8 000. More than 80 people were killed during the escape, 20 vehicles were burnt and a prison office was set ablaze, according to the African Association for the Defence of Human Rights.
The prison’s inhabitants include opposition leaders, war criminals convicted by the International Criminal Court and soldiers convicted of assassinating the president’s father and predecessor, Laurent Kabila.
It was unclear whether any were among the escapees.
Ne Muanda Nsemi, leader of Bundu Dia Kongo, which aims to restore the ancient Kingdom of Kongo around the source of Congo River, fled in the mayhem with the help of his supporters.
Nsemi, who calls himself a prophet and wears canary yellow robes and red bandanas, had been imprisoned since March, when he was arrested after clashes between his supporters and police.
The prison break was regarded as another symptom of the worsening political instability and dysfunction surrounding Kabila, who has been dealing with uprisings across the vast country since he refused to step down as required by the constitution’s term limits in December.
Alexis Thambwe Mwamba, the justice minister, played down the number of escapees, saying that there had been only 50.
But rights groups and other witnesses insisted the true figure was many times that.
Early on Wednesday, Nsemi’s followers killed security guards at the main entrance of Makala prison, according to a senior prison official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to talk to the news media. They proceeded to the block where Nsemi was held and freed him.
“Other inmates took advantage of this situation and broke down the doors of their cells and fled,” the official said.
The prison, originally built to house 1 500, has long been criticised by rights groups because of its reputation for unlawful detentions, abuses and corruption.