Kinshasa, June 24: Two people were killed and 12 others injured in the Democratic Republic of Congo when prison inmates who tried to escape detonated two grenades.
About 20 female prisoners were also raped during the failed prison break attempt, according to Congo’s attorney general.
The female prisoners were raped when male prisoners in the prison in Goma in eastern Congo failed to break through the prison’s walls, Oscar Kasangandjo said on Tuesday.
The prisoners attacked the pavilion where the female prisoners were being held and raped around 20 of them, he added.
The inmates, who were mostly from the prison’s death row section, were armed with grenades.
The Goma prison was built to house 150 prisoners, but at least 600 people are currently incarcerated there.
The UN peacekeeping mission in Congo has called on the government to reform the country’s prisons.
—–Agencies