which human rights organizations have long warned about due to severe overcrowding.
Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo announced on Tuesday that at least 129 people lost their lives during an attempted escape from Makala Central Prison, a facility that “Human rights organizations have been concerned about this for a long time.”This is the latest crisis to hit the notorious, overcrowded prison, where conditions have been repeatedly described by human rights groups as inhumane.
Congo’s Interior Minister, Jackman Shabani, stated that most of the deaths were caused by a stampede, but at least 24 prisoners were shot dead while trying to escape from Makala Central Prison early Monday morning.
In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), he mentioned that 59 people were injured and that there were “some cases of women being raped,” without providing further details. As of Tuesday afternoon, it was still unclear whether any prisoners had successfully escaped.
Makala is the only prison in Kinshasa, the capital of Congo and one of the most densely populated cities in Africa. The prison was originally designed to hold 1,500 people but was housing at least 12,000 inmates, according to an Amnesty International report from October 2023.
The violence occurred while Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi was in Beijing attending a forum on China-Africa cooperation, adding to the challenges faced by the central African nation. Congo, with a population of over 100 million, is grappling with multiple crises, including a deadly outbreak of bird flu and a conflict in its eastern region that has resulted in over six million deaths and displaced millions more over the past three decades.
Gunfire broke out on Monday night at the prison, according to local news reports and videos posted on social media. Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala, a well-known Congolese journalist who spent time in Makala last year but has since been released, shared a video showing a chaotic scene with prisoners running outside as gunshots echoed around them. In another video he shared, filmed at night, several prisoners are seen standing around what appears to be a body inside the prison grounds.
Several videos verified by The New York Times as having been filmed inside the prison complex show the aftermath of the escape attempt.
In one video, a large crowd is gathered around at least 25 lifeless bodies lined up in a central alley between prison buildings. Another video, filmed from the eastern perimeter of the prison complex, shows bodies being loaded onto a truck and transported out of the facility, while a third video captures thick black smoke billowing from a building near the prison entrance.
Minister Shabani said that the prisoners who died from gunshot wounds were shot “after a warning.” The spokesperson for the Congolese government, Patrick Muyaya, who was traveling with President Tshisekedi in Beijing, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Human rights groups have long condemned the appalling conditions at Makala Prison, a facility built in 1957, before Congo gained independence from Belgium, and which has seen little renovation since.
Last year, over 500 prisoners died from suffocation and various diseases, according to Emmanuel Ado Koll, a human rights advocate based in Kinshasa.
Undated videos shared by Mr. Bujakera, the Congolese journalist, earlier this summer show exhausted prisoners crammed into holding cells and bathrooms, unable to sit or lie down properly.