Bulawayo prisoners have been going without meals since October 24 and relatives have since been asked to bring food. Prison officers at Khami and Grey's Prison in the city told reporters that relatives were being encouraged to bring food three times a day.

 

The prison officers said Zimbabwe Prison Services (ZPS) had since recruited public relations personnel to mann gates at Khami and Grey's prisons during visiting hours, advising relatives to bring food for their loved ones. The public relations officers were sometimes reported to turn away visitors who would not have brought food.

Seven inmates at Mutimurefu prison in Masvingo died of hunger related diseases, in August.

A report released by the Zimbabwe Association for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender (ZACRO) recently revealed that at least two inmates die everyday due to hunger and disease at two of Zimbabwe's biggest jails.

ZACRO said conditions in prisons across the country had deteriorated over the years with the Zimbabwe Prison Service (ZPS) out of cash to buy drugs to treat HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, rampant in jails because of overcrowding.

ZACRO said the ZPS  had no money to buy enough food for inmates and in some cases even failed to raise cash to pay for pauper burials for those who succumb to disease and hunger in jail.

A survey of the country's 55 prisons carried out by ZACRO this year, showed that the jails were holding a total of 35 000 prisoners, more than double their designed carrying capacity of 17 000 inmates.

ZACRO indicated that an amnesty granted to some categories of prisoners by President Robert Mugabe in June appeared to have had little impact on the inmate overload.

The organisation said an outbreak of pellagra disease in 2007 killed at least 23 inmates at the notorious Chikurubi Maximum Security prison. Pellagra is a vitamin deficiency disease caused by shortage of vitamin B3 and protein.

A parliamentary committee that toured Chikurubi and other prisons in 2006 was shocked to find inmates clad in torn, dirty uniforms and crammed into overcrowded cells with filthy; overflowing toilets that had not been flushed for weeks as water had been cut off due to unpaid bills.

The committee said in a report that the conditions in prisons were inhuman. (VOP)