An attempted jailbreak in Congo’s main prison left 129 people dead, including some who were shot by guards and soldiers and others who died in a stampede at the overcrowded facility, authorities said Tuesday.
A provisional assessment showed that 24 inmates were fatally shot by “warning” shots fired by guards as they tried to escape from the Makala Central Prison in the capital Kinshasa early on Monday, Congolese Interior Minister Jacquemin Shabani said on the social media platform X.
“There are also 59 injured people taken into care by the government, as well as some cases of women raped,” he said, adding that order had been restored at the prison, part of which was burned in the attempted jailbreak.
Shabani did not elaborate on the incidents of rape in the prison, which has both male and female inmates, as well as military personnel facing charges.
Inmates had increasingly grown frustrated with the poor conditions in the facility, including inadequate beds, poor feeding, and poor sanitation.
Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala, a prominent Congolese journalist who was recently detained in the prison for months, spoke of its “deplorable and inhumane” conditions and how inmates constantly lack food, water and medical care. Among the inmates are nearly 700 women and hundreds of minors “treated in the same way as adults,” he said.
Calling for an independent investigation, rights groups and the opposition accused the government of using excessive force and covering up the true death toll. An earlier statement from a senior government official on Monday said that only two people died.
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