Prisoners at Zomba Prison last week got angry and stoned officials in protest after they went days without food, The Daily Times has learnt.
Our findings reveal that the situation has reached this point at Zomba Prison, because the institution last paid its food suppliers in November 2015 who have now stopped supplying them with food.
We have also established that the food situation is not at Zomba Prison only as Maula, Chichiri and Mulanje prisons are also grappling with the same problem.
Inmates are either going hungry all day or having porridge.
At other prisons we have established that inmates eat once a day but the meals are far below the minimum adult feed.
This is a burden of the inmates considering the fact that the prisons are already congested posing a health threat.
We have apparently learnt that there is a total of 13,000 inmates in all of the country’s 32 prisons. 2, 152 of them are living with HIV, 1 803 are on Antiretroviral Treatment (ART), 581 are malnourished, 126 on Tuberculosis treatment and 18 under five children whose mothers are serving a jail sentence.
Executive Director for Centre for Human Rights Education Advice and Assistance (Chreaa) Victor Mhango said the situation is very bad and inhuman.
“Already these people have a poor diet. They always have insufficient food and the hunger situation has just worsened things,” he said.
Mhango noted that this is partly the case because many people have the impression that inmates do not deserve better.
“These are Malawians who are here to be reformed. If we aren’t careful we will just be grooming hungry and angry people who are likely to return to crime after completing their jail sentence. We need to take care of them as they reform to become productive citizens afterwards,” he said.
Meanwhile five civil society Organisations (CSOs) have petitioned president Mutharika on the current food crisis in prisons seeking for his immediate intervention.
The CSOs comprise of Child Rights Advocacy and Paralegal Aid Centre (Crapac), Paralegal Advisory Service Institute (Pasi), The Youth Watch Society (Yowso) Southern African Litigation Centre (SALC)and Chreaa.
According to a letter dated June 7, 2016 which we have seen, the CSOs have received a number of reliable reports that prisoners are currently suffering significant food shortages in the country’s prisons and are increasingly becoming malnourished, risking death, illness, and severe suffering.
“For months, reports have indicated that prisoners have been suffering from food shortages. In recent weeks, we understand the situation to have reached critical levels, with many Prisoners under the state’s care currently facing severe malnourishment,” reads the letter in part.
The letter also highlights that the denial of nutritious food to prisoners is not only inhumane but also unlawful.
Malawi prisons spokesperson, Smart Maliro dismissed reports that there is an acute food shortage in the prisons.
“What is true though is that the floods and drought the country experienced in the recent past didn’t spare our prisons so whatever affects the outside has an impact on the prisons,” he said.
Maliro added: “This is the case because our suppliers will have problems in sourcing the food items. You may be aware that we have maize gardens in some of the prisons in the country. The floods and drought didn’t spare them either which led to low yields.”
He, however, assured that the situation is under control as the prison has engaged Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc) that is supplying them with food stuffs in addition to other food suppliers.
Maliro however did not respond to the questions about Zomba Prison chaos and the issue of the food shortage situation being created by inadequate funding to pay suppliers.
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