Gaborone — A heavily guarded metal door swings open. Entrance is restricted and monitored by guards.
As it shuts, the bang alone tells the story of confinement inside a maximum prison.
Inside, there are no chairs, no beds. Men in maroon uniforms sit on the cold concrete with their backs to the wall. All is utter silence.
The television set is switched off, and the cards they use to beat the wait for eternity or life have been surrendered.
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This is Gaborone Central Prison's death row inmate Cell 10. Its neighbour is Cell 11, which houses the overflow of death row inmates.
Above the cells' dayroom, underwear dries on the rebar, layered with razor wire, like wilted flags of surrender.
The inmates, eight in Cell 11 and twelve in Cell 10, sit here, as it is the only place they get a touch of sunlight in a place starved of it.
Here, they see the sun for a moment and feel it from far enough to know it exists, but never enough to bask.
Some have been here for years, others for months. On all of them, remorse is written across their faces, but remorse changes nothing.
For some, appeals have failed, for others, pardon lingers, and hangman keeps a calendar known only to him.
"We know we have committed offences and we have accepted that. This is a punishment like any other. It is what the law says," said Gobuamang Ntsuape, a man who has been on death row since 2022.
At some point, fear engulfed him, but he was comforted by the realisation that the law has to take its course, adding that the death penalty should be deemed like any other punishment, with no heavy escorts and sirens.
As for Thomas Moeng, convicted of murder in 2021, the waiting is not without questions and hopelessness over a judicial system that failed him, even on the verge of death.
"I did not file for an appeal," he said, and his reason was that the period set for appeal had lapsed owing to a delay by the court in furnishing him with papers for his appeal, thus shutting the door on his appeal intention.
He believes that were it not for the delay in his case law, his sentence could have been overturned, adding that for his August 2021 conviction for a 2006 murder, the court relied on witness statements of deceased persons.
With the window of appeal shut, Moeng stands among the longest-serving inmates awaiting capital punishment, and knows his fate lies in the hands of the President, having been left by the previous President languishing in the dreadful Cell 10.
"Buisanyang le ba molao lo baakanye late filing," he said, explaining that for capital punishment, accused persons should fall by their case merits, not legal technicalities.
Another challenge facing inmates is that some pro deo lawyers desert them after conviction, pointing out that their services covered only up to the trial.
This leaves inmates on their own, despite lacking the expertise to manoeuvre legal requirements to file an appeal case before court, at times, even if they try, they can still have their appeals not heard because they skipped some processes.
Among all the 20 inmates, not all have managed to have their appeals heard, but they are well aware that if fate had allowed, the Court of Appeal could have overturned their verdicts or even set them free. But that is water under the bridge. While other inmates have given up, Mooketsi Simba Mampori has opted not to give up.
He is appealing to the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights (AfCHPR), whose jurisdiction extends to countries that have ratified the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the establishment of the court.
"I am done with the Court of Appeal, and only waiting for what could happen," said the former Botswana Defence Force commando, further accusing prison officials of stalling the filing of his papers to the AfCHPR.
Another convict, Motlatsi Kgotho, has given up the fight and only waits for his day.
"We stay for a very long time here," said the man convicted in 2023, adding he has shifted focus to fighting sugar diabetes amid medication supply challenges.
As for Atlholang Mujangi, the cells can be dreadful until one accepts their fate, noting that those outside should think deeply on the issue of capital punishment.
"When you look at suicide cases, one wonders if the death sentence does not set our people's minds to think that some problems can only be resolved by death," he said.
A former police officer also known as Two Meter, Mujangi was convicted for the murder of a Nyangabgwe Referral Hospital nurse in 2014. While his life and those of fellow death row inmates lie in the hands of fate, he believes there is need to offer counselling for the immediate family members of the convicts after a sentence is passed.
The death sentence, he said, weighs heavily on immediate family members, noting his child could not afford to write Form Five examinations due to depression.
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Casting light on why loved ones should be helped, through counselling, to come to terms with the fate of convicts, he reckons that since in most cases the offences in question are the convict's only brush with the law, and that they usually lead lives free of offending while their trial unfolds, their sentencing brings about a lot of emotional trauma for their families.
In his case, during the period between the commission of the offence and his sentencing, Mujangi operated a public transport taxi for over seven years, a period during which he did not commit any crime, painting him to his loved ones as a family member in good standing, who only erred at some point.
The death row inmate partially blamed the training that recruits in the defence force and police service as contributing to cases of murder, alleging that they were trained to use force and violence, which can then introduce officers to such behaviour.
Although constrained within the prison walls, Mujangi believes those awaiting a date with the hangman can be of use to the fight against gender-based violence before their ultimate fate, as they would be talking from experience and having lived life as a perpetrator of the ill.
Currently, the country has about 20 death row inmates, most of whom are not repeat offenders, waiting for clemency or execution.
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