100 Nigerian inmates escape
29/09/2005 21:55 - (SA)
Lagos - About 100 prisoners in southwestern Nigeria escaped during a protest against poor living conditions, said officials on Thursday.
A senior official at Auchi prison said: "We are yet to determine the exact number of those who escaped. But I think they are about 100."
The official said the incident took place on Wednesday after inmates of a prison in Edo State rioted for what they said was poor feeding in the jail and overpowered warders.
An Edo police spokesperson said many of the escaped prisoners had been rearrested, adding that their relations had turned over 10 of them to the police.
The incident came barely a week after three inmates of Ikoyi prison in Lagos were shot dead during rioting in protest against an attempt by prison officials to confiscate weapons and move some of them to another jail.
Nigerian prisons were notorious for congestion and poor welfare for inmates.
Ikoyi jail, for instance, was built to house 800 inmates, but when the pressure group, Human Rights Watch, visited in March this year there were 2 130 inmates, all but 95 of them suspects on remand awaiting trial.
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