Yambio Central Prison runs out of Drugs; Sick Inmates are transported on Bicycles to Other Health Facilities for Treatment

South Sudan Prison department in Western Equatoria State has run out of medical equipment and drugs. The facility serves both female and male inmates who are currently serving their sentences in Yambio Central Prison and other prisons across the State.

 Yambio Central prison was built in 1946 and has a capacity of 500 inmates. Currently, the facility is hosting 110 inmates out of who are two female prisoners and the rest male with the majority of them being held for minor offenses.

 According to Maj. General, James Tut Gathluak, Yambio Central Prison Health facility is facing a lot of difficulties when it comes to medical treatment of prisoners who fall sick including those with simple ailments that can easily be cured. The situation is made dire owing to lack of means of transport; as a result, the prison administration often has to carry sick prisoners on bicycles to seek treatment outside the prison facilities, a situation that prison authorities terms as serious and unacceptable.

 “If urgent attention is not paid by both the State and National government to the dire situations at the prisons in Yambio and in Western Equatoria State at large, the situation would escalate to a disaster,” General Tut cautioned as he attributed the bad situation to the recent insecurity and war that started in 2013 and engulfed the whole South Sudan. This he said is coupled with the slow implementation of the recently signed Revitalized Peace Agreement by the recently formed government of National Unity.

 Previously, the national government, the South Sudan Red Cross, and World Vision have been supporting Yambio Central Prisons with medical equipment and drugs but the services have stopped owing to insecurity reasons and recently the effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

 South Sudan National Prisons are usually mandated to engage in food productions by letting the inmates cultivate the prison farms, however, due to lack of transportation for the prisoners to the farms, no food productions are currently taking place. This is due to the fact that the inmates cannot be allowed to move on foot for like four hours to the farms and come back.

 It is not only the prisoners suffering due to lack of transportation, the officers as well suffer, for instance, unless government officials or well-wishers offer lifts to these officers, even the director of the prison in Yambio have no option but either to use a bicycle or moves on foot to participate in official government events and meetings in Yambio.

 Henry Edward Zege, Clinical Officer at Yambio Central Prisons mentioned a lack of basic drugs such as paracetamols, and antibiotics, and many others at the facility, a situation that has been there for the past two years. According to Zege, the situation has forced the medical unit at Yambio Prisons to prescribe drugs for the prisoners and asked their families to go and buy in the pharmacies at the markets and bring it to the medical unit at prison be given to the sick inmates.

 He added that inmates have a right to medical services while in prison and when they finish their sentences, they should go home in good health; unfortunately this is currently not the situation at Yambio Central Prison and other prisons within WES.

James Dokule who is serving a 15-years’ sentence and was transferred from Juba where he was charged with a capital offense of murder to Yambio Central Prisons where he is currently serving his last two years corroborated that when a prisoner falls sick the administration takes them on bicycles to Yambio referral State Hospital for treatment. He further revealed that the mattresses and bedsheets at the prison facility are all torn and inmates are sleeping on the floor.

By:Elias GinanaMangbondo