By Thulani Mpofu
Zimbabwe’s overcrowded jails have virtually ceased being correctional facilities but places where inmates commonly die of hunger and disease, while others spend days barely dressed because authorities lack money to buy them prison garb, according to a politician recently released from prison.
Speaking on March 12 upon his release on bail after spending a month in jail, Roy Bennett, an official in the Movement for Democratic Change and the deputy agriculture minister-designate, painted a horrific picture of the conditions in jails.
Mr Bennett spoke of “genocide” and “human rights tragedy” unfolding in local jails and “walking skeletons” of prisoners emaciated by a severe lack of food.
Five inmates with whom he shared a cell died in the month he spent there, he said, and the bodies were kept in a laundry room because Mutare prison, in eastern Manicaland province, where he was incarcerated, has no mortuary.
“It’s an absolute humanitarian disaster and I would liken it to pictures that I have seen from the concentration camps,” Mr Bennett told SW Radio Africa, an independent Zimbabwean radio station.
“There is an absolute lack of food, lack of medical attention, lack of cleanliness – a lack of everything. There is absolutely nothing in the prisons. Prisoners get one meal a day – a piece of sadza [a stiff corn dumpling] the size of your hand – and water with salt in it.
“Those prisoners who do not have relatives or people outside supporting them are in worse conditions – or look like those emaciated, skeletal bodies we saw during the Holocaust. Basically it is a human rights tragedy.”
Amid an economic crisis, the cash-strapped government is preoccupied with the struggle to import electricity, food, medicines, fuel and paying civil servants’ salaries. Locked away behind the high walls, prisoners are almost forgotten.
In its 2008 annual report, the Zimbabwe Association for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender (Zacro), said the country’s 55 jails were meant for 17,000 inmates, but are holding some 35,000 people.
Zacro, which caters to the welfare of prisoners and ex-offenders, says that because of overcrowding and underfunding, prisons face problems of unhygienic conditions, lack of proper food, medical facilities and care, and the spread of diseases – especially HIV and tuberculosis.
“Many of the prisons are too small and very old with some having been converted from farm houses into prisons,” the report said.
“Examples are Hurungwe and Tabudirira farm prisons. Other prisons like Mazoe farm prison and Chikurubi female prison were made of corrugated metal structures during the colonial days while to date they need expansion and refurbishment. In these prisons, inadequate floor space in cells further results in overcrowding.”
It adds that frequent water cuts cause inmates in some prisons to use communal buckets as toilets.
“Predisposing conditions like overcrowding, poor sanitation, poor food preparation and inadequate washing facilities render prisoners extremely vulnerable to some diseases.
“Common diseases continuously affecting inmates include diarrhoea, cholera, malaria, TB and HIV/Aids,” the report noted.
Evans Muyambo, 30, arrested on charges of illegal diamond mining in January, said his experience at Mutare prison was terrible.
“There is nothing there, absolutely nothing, only the four walls,” he said.
“There is no food, water, toilets, even lights. There is nowhere to sleep because the cells are always packed.
“The two weeks I spent on remand were the worst experience in my life. Prison wardens do not torture you, but the hostile conditions are enough torture.”
At least 15 inmates at Chipinge prison, 150km south of Mutare, recently died of cholera.
“It is true we received that report,” Fungai Mbetsa, provincial administrator for Manicaland, said.
“Our officers are on the ground investigating. But a preliminary report I received indicates that the outbreak is now under control.”
A nationwide cholera outbreak has killed 4,000 since August and sickened 90,000, according to a UN tally.
Because of the deplorable conditions in the jails, even prisoners serving short terms generally consider their time behind bars to be a death sentence because some die there or contract diseases that kill them after their release, said Irene Petras, director of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights.
“The conditions are deplorable,” she said.
“There are a lot of issues that must be addressed: from the general infrastructure, hygiene, lack of food, running water and the terrible condition of prisoners. When you put all these together you see it will take a concerted effort to change the situation.”
By failing to provide proper food, the government is violating a statute, issued in 1996, that says prisoners are entitled to bread, tea, margarine, milk, meat and sugar, among other items.
“The main thing is the state must open up so that those who can assist can do so,” Ms Petras said.
“This is an emergency and we cannot close out and pretend we can get everything right ourselves.”
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