Maurice Kamto calls for decongestion of prisons to minimise Covid-19 spread

The National President of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, CRM, Prof Maurice Kamto has implored state authorities to take concrete steps in decongesting prisons.

These detention centres, he says, are a perfect environment for the virus to skyrocket within a short time.

With the rapid spread of the second wave of the virus, the CRM party head thinks humanitarian action is the ideal solution to extremely congested prisons in Cameroon.

He has thus requested that some prisoners be given their freedom in order to make the prisons liveable and free of the pandemic.

It is no secret how hell-like prisons in Cameroon are. Characteristically very overcrowded with very deplorable hygienic conditions, making them very fertile for the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

This has been evident in the fact that the prisons alone in Cameroon have had at least 750 known positive cases since the pandemic began.

Other African Nations such as Ethiopia, Morocco, Libya, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and undoubtedly other countries have already released thousands of prisoners due to rapid contamination of the pandemic in their prisons.

Cameroon meanwhile, keeps stacking up prisoners, despite growing concerns of the poor state of health of these prisons.

Mimi Mefo Info