Long Pre-trial Detention Overcrowds Senegal Prisons

DAKAR, SENEGAL — Overcrowded prisons, poor conditions for the inmates and long pre-trial detention periods are issues throughout West Africa. In Senegal, the issue has led to prisoner protests and calls for reform. An insurrection by 600 inmates at Dakar's Rebeuss prison in September left one prisoner dead and 40 others wounded. The prison has seen five hunger strikes in the past year, according to the director of the prison administration, Colonel Daouda Diop. The prison, the largest in the capital, has a capacity of 800 but houses about 2,500 prisoners, according to the independent National Prisons Observatory. Former detainees told VOA they were packed in like sardines and got sick from being fed substandard food, like rice with pebbles and other debris in it.