MONUSCO organizes a workshop for North Kivu prisons officials

14 juil 2015

MONUSCO organizes a workshop for North Kivu prisons officials

Goma, 7 July 2015- MONUSCO Justice Support Section in collaboration with the provincial Justice division in the North-Kivu province organized a two-day workshop in the North-Kivu for about twenty North-Kivu prison staff members, which workshop led to the crafting of a contingency plan for the Goma central prison.

The role of the prisons managers is to prevent prisoners’ escape by setting up appropriate security mechanisms, for example, hidden surveillance cameras and by improving the conditions of detention... This requires a better knowledge of the laws of the country in this area for human lives are precious.

The crafting of a contingency plan for the central prison of Goma is one of the most remarkable results achieved by this two-day session, say 7 - 8 July, which brought together about twenty North Kivu prisons managers. The workshop was organized by MONUSCO Justice Support Session in collaboration with the North Kivu provincial Justice department.

Participants issued some recommendations for the smooth management of incidents in the prison environments: quick handling of incidents occurring in the prison, whether major or minor; reinforcement of oversight mechanism during day or night times; installation of hidden surveillance cameras, fire extinguishers as well as systematic search of the food brought to the prisoners; the registration of the prison staff, increasing their number and with incentives; identification by the provincial Government of another space to build a new prison to meet the standard security norms, Munzenze prison in Goma failing to comply with such norms and in the event of a major incident such as volcanic eruption, it would be difficult to evacuate prisoners.

In the mid-term, a special police should be formed to guard the prison and staff should be trained on the contingency actions in case of major incidents which would require that the prison staff members be trained on the use of the different tools to help contain incidents: fire extinguishers which the prison management requested from MONUSCO; close collaboration between the police, the judiciary and the provincial authorities with a view to stopping unnecessary long detentions which is the main source of incidents in the prison.

The long term recommendation made is the building of a new prison to comply with the standard norms to be able to handle both major and minor incidents in the prison. On this recommendation, participants expressed the hope to see MONUSCO involved.

Christian MAPENDANO