Zimbabwe prisons a hell hole

Posted on the web on 1/04/09 by m&g

Zimbabwe's prisons have long been notorious for being dirty, disease-ridden places of despair, where opponents of President Robert Mugabe languish for months, usually on murky charges of plotting against him.

But just how bad conditions have become within prison walls, while the economy collapses without, is only beginning to come to light.

A documentary to be screened on SABC television on Tuesday evening shows emaciated prisoners teetering at death's door for lack of food and medication.

The documentary, which is based on secret footage obtained by officials and prisoners, also tells of how relatives coming to collect their loved ones' remains are forced to rummage through mounds of dead bodies.

The Zimbabwean Association for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender (Zacro) estimates that at least 20 prisoners die each day in the country's 55 prisons.

According to Edison Chiota, Zacro national director, most die of HIV/Aids or associated diseases such as tuberculosis, which thrive in unhygienic conditions.

The incidence of pellagra, a skin disease caused by malnutrition that can cause serious psychological problems and even death, has also soared. Cholera, on the other hand, a diarrhoeal disease that has killed more than 4 000 Zimbabweans since last autumn, had been been brought under control in prisons "to a certain extent", he said.

In the SABC documentary, entitled Hell Hole, 28-year-old Brighton Mudadi's life is shown to to be hanging by a thread.

Mudadi, who is serving an 18-month sentence for robbery in the southern Beitbridge prison, has tuberculosis and is severely malnourished. His rib cage protrudes through his matchstick frame as a fellow prisoner helps him wash himself and the soiled pants he is wearing.