MAPUTO, July 22 — Mozambique’s National Prison Service (SERNAP) said on Monday that it has recaptured 584 of the 1,534 inmates who escaped last December from the Maputo Central Prison and the adjacent Maximum Security Prison in the country’s capital of Maputo.
According to SERNAP Director-General Ilidio Miguel, during the launch of the week commemorating the institution’s 50th anniversary, the statistics regarding the number of recaptured escapees are continuously being updated, and currently, 584 prisoners have been recaptured.
Miguel noted the challenges of overcrowding and the need for structural improvements within the prison system. “The number of prisoners we have exceeds our capacity.
We have around 20,000 inmates, when our capacity is for only half that number, which is a huge challenge,” he said.
Miguel said that in its five-year program for 2025-2029, the government has committed to building 13 new prisons, including 10 district prisons and three regional prisons, which will enable it to tackle the issue of prison overcrowding.
He added that SERNAP is carrying out alternative sentencing measures to help reduce prison overcrowding. “Our challenge is, even in the face of overcrowding, to strive for increasingly humane treatment of prisoners.
We need to address the issue of proper nutrition, the issue of health, and, above all, their rehabilitation. Our main challenge is to rehabilitate the prisoners so that they can be reintegrated into society,” Miguel said. (Xinhua)
