Two dead, 16 wounded in Burundi prison riots: police

Rioting broke out in two overcrowded prisons in Burundi, leaving one civilian and one inmate dead and at least 16 others wounded, a police spokesman said Friday.

At Mpimba prison, the country's largest, in the capital Bujumbura, police stepped in to put down the rioting on Thursday, and two people were killed by the rioters, the spokesman, Pierre Nkurikiye told AFP.

It happened as some 100 Muslims were visiting the prison to pray with inmates at the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

"Two people were killed -- one of the Muslims who was visiting and one detainee, killed by rioters," Nkurikiye said.

The incident at Mpimba was sparked by disciplinary measures taken against 13 prisoners who had rioted in July involved between 150 and 200 of the prison's 2,700 inmates.

Prisoners contacted by phone by AFP said the July riots had broken out after prisoners in Mpimba had had their daily food ration -- a small portion of beans -- cut by half.

A second prison riot in Gitega in the centre of the country in the early hours of Thursday left six inmates seriously injured, the police spokesman said.

The six, all tasked with keeping order among their fellow prisoners, suffered knife wounds and were beaten with iron bars by the inmates.

Despite measures implemented in 2009 to reduce prison overcrowding, the tiny central African country still has more than 7,000 prisoners crammed into penitentiaries built to house a total of 4,000 inmates.

 

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