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Kenya: Security Scare As Prison Warders Strike
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The East African Standard (Nairobi)
26 April 2008
Posted to the web 25 April 2008
Nairobi
Three prisoners died as a countrywide strike by warders to push for better pay got under way.
Thousands of other prisoners starved for hours after the warders refused to allow them to have their meals.
Officers at the affected prisons threatened to release hardcore criminals if their demands are not met by Monday. The three prisoners died at the Naivasha Maximum Prison after taking a brew suspected to be laced with the lethal methanol.
Five others, now partially blind, are admitted in critical condition at the Naivasha District Hospital. And the numbers could rise.
The tragedy struck as more than 500 warders in the main and annex prisons downed tools over risk allowances and poor working conditions.
Despite the Naivasha Prison being one of the most heavily guarded, it was not clear how the inmates smuggled the chemical into their cells.
Authorities said four of the five survivors are serving 20-years for rape while the other one is serving life sentence.
Dr Osborne Tembu, a medical officer at the hospital, said the five were being treated for toxicity.
"Our initial investigations show that the five drank a brew laced with methanol but their condition is now stable," Tembu said.
The irate warders from the main prison and the Annex prison closed the main prison road and at one time blocked police officers from taking remand suspects to courts.
Waving placards and twigs, the warders threatened to set free death row inmates by Monday, next week, if their grievances are not addressed.
The officers complained they were left out when other forces were awarded risk allowance. They said they are exposed to many dangers in the course of their duty.
They questioned the criteria used in awarding police officers risk allowance yet they (warders) also worked in poor and dangerous conditions.
The warders said that they would not take in any remand suspects from the police cells or escort them until their problems are solved.
Other grievances include poor working conditions, deplorable houses, uniform and the running of their Sacco.
The officers also sought audience with the Vice President Mr Kalonzo Musyoka, who is the minister for Home Affairs, under which the prisons department falls.
"Police have been given decent housing units yet we are forced to share houses due to congestion at the prison quarters," they lamented.
The prison warders want a risk allowance of Sh5,000 that has already been awarded to the both regular and Administration police.
They are also demanding to be given Sh10,000 that they were promised when they were called to help in manning the elections last year and in helping quell the post election violence.
Further, the warders want authorities to start supplying them with uniforms and build better houses for them and their families.
"We do not get uniforms from the Government as it is the case of military and police. We also demand that we be treated just like other security personnel," said one of the striking officers.
The strike which was on its third day in some institutions, paralysed operations in courts and other areas as the warders refused to report to work.
Operations in most courts were paralysed after most of the prisoners and remandees whose cases were scheduled for mention failed to turn up.
At the Kamiti Maximum Prison, warders refused to supervise the feeding of the prisoners and by 3pm, no food had been served.
The warders camped outside the main prison shouting and demanding that their case be considered urgently.
They at one point they chased away the Kiambu OCPD Mr Jay Munyambu after he arrived and tried to intervene.
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Munyambu and the local DC had arrived at the institution when the warders confronted them and forced them back to their vehicles, asking them to leave.
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