Islamic Gunmen Attack Prison In Congo, 800 Inmates Freed

Islamic Gunmen Attack Prison In Congo, 800 Inmates Freed
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Reports have shown that over 800 prison inmates have made their way out and escaped from a prison in Congo after some of the Islamic militants in the country had reportedly laid a massive siege on a prison in Butembo area of the nation.

The militant Islamist group, Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) has also been blamed for the attack, according to the Congolese Army.

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It has been reported that about 80 heavily armed militia had laid siege on the Congo prison to free some of the inmates, including 12 ADF women that were in custody, in an operation that lasted for about a quarter of an hour, Captain Anthony Mualushayi had reported.

Two policemen guarding the prison were killed and three ADF fighters were captured by civilians and burnt alive, bringing the official death toll of at least five dead, according to the BBC.

Military sources said a group of unidentified Mayi-Mayi attacked the central prison of Kakwangura in the town of Butembo.

The UK Guardian quoted a prison source as saying that of the 872 people held in the prison, only 49 remained.

This “attack caused the death of at least two policemen and the flight of all the detainees”, wrote on Twitter the Kivu Security Barometer (KST), an organisation that has observers in the area, specifying that “the ADF is suspected”.

The ADF is said to be one of the most deadly groups in the eastern region of the DRC, which has been torn apart by violence for nearly 30 years.

No fewer than thirteen inmates have been confirmed dead and two others injured following yet another bloody fight in a notorious Ecuadoran prison yesterday, law enforcement officials have revealed.

‘Unfortunately, central command reports 13 (inmates) dead and two injured,’ the South American country’s prison authority SNAI said on Twitter.

The incident took place at the same Bellavista prison in the town of Santo Domingo de los Colorados, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Quito, where 44 inmates were killed in a bloody brawl in May.

 

Africa Daily News, New York

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