Prison inmates in Haiti were already facing horrendous conditions: overcrowding, prolonged pretrial detention, poor sanitation and shuttered courtrooms due to an ongoing strike by court clerks that began on April 12 over poor pay and working conditions.
Now they can add one more thing: lack of food and water.
“The situation is alarming,” said Marie Yolène Gilles, who runs the human rights group Fondasyon Je Klere, or Eyes Wide Open Foundation. “I’ve spoken to the directors of several prisons and they have told me that their cupboards are empty. The prisoners who are suffering from all this are calling me day and night, complaining that they do not have any food. When there is food, it’s not enough to feed everybody. There is no water.”
