Maputo — The maximum security prison in the central Mozambican city of Beira currently holds over twice the number of inmates it was designed for, reports Thursday's issue of the independent newsheet "Mediafax".
The capacity of the jail is for 75-80 people, but it is currently housing about 200.
"Mediafax" claims that the overcrowding is leading to regular deaths in the prison, but gave no figures for the number of prisoners who have died in recent months.
It said the most recent death was of a man accused of petty theft, who supposedly suffocated three weeks ago.
One of the reasons given for the overcrowding is the current rehabilitation of the provincial police command in Beira. While the building work continues, prisoners have been moved from the cells of the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC), into the top security jail.
Inmates, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, told the paper "This isn't a jail, it's a hell-hole. Some people have been here six or more months without their detentions being legalised. There's a lot of injustice here". (Under Mozambican law, a detained person must be brought before a magistrate within 48 hours of his arrest: the magistrate then decides either to release him - conditionally or otherwise - or to continue the detention.) Some of the worst abuses, the paper's sources said, are committed, not by the guards, but by some of the hardened criminals serving lengthy sentences, and used by the prison management to help run the jail.
They cited the case of a convicted murderer named Lois, serving a 16 year sentence, whom the prison management had appointed as "chief of the cells".
"Lois receives the water intended for us", they claimed, "and he sells it. Anyone who has no money, doesn't drink. So we're exposed to danger, because of the high temperatures, with no water, worsened by the excessive number of people in the cells".
"Lois is terror", one inmate says. "When he says he's going to punish you, he does so without mercy. This prison can only be compared with hell. If I get out of here alive, I'm going to join a religion".
The provincial police command confirmed that the prison is overcrowded, but would not give "Mediafax" the exact number of inmates currently held there (which suggests either that the officer interviewed did not know, or that the number is shockingly high).
The police source was resigned to the overcrowding. He said that, while building work continues on the provincial command, the police have nowhere else to put the prisoners. Every other nearby jail is already full.
"We have resorted to jails at Dondo, at Manga, to the cells at the Beira fifth precinct, and to the Beira Central Prison, but these don't solve the problem", he said. "The prison population is growing by the day".
