At least one prison warden was shot dead and three prisoners wounded during an escape from a jail in Upper Nile State on 1 January. Renk County Commissioner Kur Chuai Deng described the incident as unrelated to unfolding events elsewhere in South Sudan.
In an interview with Radio Tamazuj, the commissioner explained that the prison break started when one inmate wrestled a gun away from a warden and started shooting at anyone around him.
Initially it was reported that more than 100 inmates escaped from the prison, which Chuai said accommodates about 179 inmates. It is not clear how many of them were recaptured.
According to the commissioner, four recaptured prisoners now face charges with sentences ranging to 10 years for complicity in the escape. The prison administration has now controlled the situation and these four are under investigation.
The dilapidated Renk prison building was established in 1945. The county government says it doesn’t have enough budget to build a new prison but that it provides food to inmates.
Chuai also urged residents of the county to refrain from tribalism and behave welcomingly toward people arriving in the county as refugees from elsewhere in Upper Nile State.
File photo: A prison in Raja in South Sudan’s Western Bahr al Ghazal State (Radio Tamazuj)