ICRC deputy head of delegation in Harare Andre Jaross said the organization
began work two weeks ago at Chikurubi Maximum Security prisons and at Harare
Central prison two weeks ago and would soon extend its work to other jails
across the country.
"The ICRC has reached agreement with the government of Zimbabwe that they
are allowed to work in the prisons," Jaross told ZimOnline by phone. "We
started around two weeks ago ..at Chikurubi and Harare Central and we will
expand to other prisons."
The ICRC will assess conditions in prisons, evaluate inmates’ requirements
and prepare a report for the Harare government but Jaross added that a key
component of the relief agency’s work in jails was also to "provide
(material) assistance according to requirements".
Zimbabwe Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa — who earlier this month
accused the South African Broadcasting Corporation of lying after the
television aired horrifying footage taken from inside Zimbabwe’s prisons and
showing hundreds of gravely ill and starving inmates — declined to discuss
the ICRC’s work in prisons.
"Just report what they (ICRC) have told you," he said, when approached for
comment on the matter.
Zimbabwe’s prisons have for long been known to be virtual death houses with
hundreds of inmates reportedly dying in the jails because of diseases and an
acute shortage of food.
According to local prisoner’s rights group Zimbabwe Association for Crime
Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender (ZACRO) at least two inmates
die everyday due to hunger and disease at Chikurubi and Harare Central – the
country’s two biggest jails.
More often than not, inmates in many of the country’s jails have to survive
on a single meal per day of sadza (a thick porridge made of ground maize)
and cabbage boiled in salted water because there is no money to buy adequate
supplies.
An outbreak of pellagra disease in 2007 killed at least 23 inmates at the
notorious Chikurubi prison. Pellagra is a vitamin deficiency disease caused
by shortage of vitamin B3 and protein.
A parliamentary committee that toured Chikurubi and other prisons in 2006
was shocked to find inmates clad in torn, dirty uniforms and crammed into
overcrowded cells with filthy; overflowing toilets that had not been flushed
for weeks as water had been cut off due to unpaid bills.
The committee said in a report that the conditions in prisons were inhuman.
However nothing much has been done to date to improve conditions due to a
lack of resources. – ZimOnline
Post published in: News