Inmates break out of DRC jail
2013-01-15 16:27
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Kinshasa - At least 300 prisoners have broken out of a jail
in the strife-torn North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo,
provincial governor Julien Paluku said on Tuesday.
The jailbreak took place on Sunday at Butembo in the Beni
territory, more than 200km north of the provincial capital Goma, Paluku and
media reports said.
"The sources vary, but I would say that more than 300
prisoners - out of about 350 - escaped from the prison at Butembo," Paluku
told AFP.
The UN-sponsored Radio Okapi reported that 372 inmates
escaped, out of a total 399 detainees.
The mass escape took place after a local tribal Mai Mai
militia force clashed with prison warders at the jail and disarmed those who
resisted, Paluku said.
The Mai Mai were being taken by soldiers to Bunia, in
neighbouring Orientale province, where they were to undergo military training
before joining the army, when they stopped in Butembo, he added.
The Congolese army in 2012 began fighting a rebel group
named M23 in North Kivu, and the province is rife with armed movements infamous
for atrocities against civilians.
"We still don't know why, but the driver stopped in
Butembo and some Mai Mai went off, saying that they planned to free those of
their number in jail to go on together with them to Bunia," the governor
said.
"The prison guards tried to stop them and then shooting
broke out," he added. "The prisoners took advantage of the confusion
to escape. There remained only about 15, and we have recaptured a score
more."
"At the slightest resistance from the prison warders,
they [the Mai Mai] disarmed them and fired several shots into the air. One
prison guard was hit and seriously wounded," Omar Kavota, the deputy
president of the federation of civil society non-governmental organisations in
North Kivu, told AFP.
In a statement, the federation denounced "the army and
Butembo police [for] powerlessly looking on" and said that their lack of
action was "close to complicity".
The federation said it feared "a sharp rise in
insecurity" in affected territories and called for the arrest of the
escaped prisoners.
The governor's office has warned local community leaders
from Butembo to Beni to "check out on houses" and inform the police
if they find any suspects.
- SAPA
