Bruce Sibanda, AfricaNews reporter in Harare, Zimbabwe Photo: ROHR Zimbabwe
Prisoners locked up in Harare jails with little or no food have received a temporary reprieve after a local bakery pledged to supply bread every day for six months. This comes amid reports that since May last year more than 700 prisoners died due to starvation at the notorious Chikurubi Maximum Prison.
Zimbabwe has 42 prisons around the country housing criminals and political detainees.
Prisoners who have no relatives to bring them extra food are virtually guaranteed a slow and very painful death. Bakers Inn handed over the bread to the ZPS as part of their efforts to assist the department until the economic situation in the country stabilizes.
Harare Central Remand Prison, Harare Central Prison, Chikurubi Maximum Security, Chikurubi Farm Prison and Chikurubi Female Prison are the targeted beneficiaries. Local prisoners’ rights group, the Zimbabwe Association for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender, said at least two inmates die everyday from hunger and disease at Chikurubi Prison.
Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison has the highest population among the country's correctional institutions. The donation comes at a time the ZPS is battling to improve the living conditions at its prison complexes.
It has issued out appeals for donations of medication and blankets for inmates as the winter season sets in.
Commissioner of Prisons, retired Major-General Paradzai Zimondi is urging well-wishers to chip in with donations instead of waiting for central government and foreign donors to assist. "We must not depend on outside donors only but local stakeholders must also help because the inmates belong to everyone in the community," he said.
In March, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) Special Assignment programme captured the extent of the collapse of the country’s prison system. The programme showed inmates who looked like living skeletons, suffering from severe malnutrition-related conditions, tuberculosis and HIV/Aids.
The Minister of Justice, Patrick Chinamasa claimed then that the SABC footage was from other countries, but recently he appealed to donors to come to the rescue as prisoners were facing starvation.
Critics say the situation in the country’s jails started to deteriorate following the appointment of retired Major General Zimondi as the head of the Zimbabwe Prison Services (ZPS). Zimondi, a staunch supporter of President Robert Mugabe, was appointed in 1999.
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