OVER 140 inmates die in Ugandan prisons every year due to poor conditions, a situation aggravated by the country’s HIV/Aids epidemic, a prisons official said on Thursday. Prison representative Mary Kaddu told reporters at a conference on conditions in African prisons, including human rights, that a report compiled by the prison department showed that over 2 200 inmates had died in the last 15 years due to poor conditions. The report, presented to delegates from 17 African and four European countries at the five-day conference, indicated that most of the deaths occurred in crowded prison cells that house three times the number of inmates they are supposed to handle. “Thirty-four percent of the deaths were due to respiratory infections like pneumonia, while those related to HIV/Aids accounted for 12% of the mortality rate,” the report said. – AFP
Thursday November 29, 2001