By Nyasa Times

Malawi prisons are ‘death traps’ for inmates plagued by overcrowding, malnutrition and rampant disease and that prisoners continue to suffer conditions which are generally poor; in some cases these amount to deliberate cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Chief Commissioner of Prisons Mac Donald Chaona conceded recently in the media that prisoners routinely live in overcrowded cells where there was no room to lie down at night, leaving them to sleep sitting up, back-to-back, pressed against one another (pictured).

Chaona said the population of inmates was double the number of the capacity the jails can hold.

He disclosed that currently there are 12,490 inmates in the 30 prisons which have the capacity of only 5,500.

The Prison chiefs hoped the population in the jails could be reduced through parole.

“I don’t have a number of prisoners to be pardoned because we submit all names of the prisoners who committed minor cases and it’s up to the ministry to come up with a number of how many should be pardoned,” he told the Daily Times.

Failure to provide adequate nutrition and medical care have also resulted in prisoners’ and there are no inquests as demanded by the law, Nyasa Times learnt.

Nutrition of prisoners in Malawian prisons is generally grossly inadequate where by they face serious nutritional deficiencies

Diarrhoea, malaria, hepatitis, AIDS and Tuberculosis are all reported to be rife.

Felix Salaniponi, the Director of National Tuberculosis (TB) control program visited Chichiri prison in Blantyre, where he said the situation regarding TB in the Malawi prisons is bad.

Salinoponi said prison contribute to TB cases in the country by about 6 to 10 percent and that inside chichiri prison, each cell he visited had about 30 to 40 percent of inmates who are TB suspects. Salaniponi said the problem inside prisons was compounded by overcrowding, poor diet and lack of ventilation.

Among the inmates are two “prisoners of conscience”, Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga who are held after celebrating the gay engagement in December.

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