Two inmates were killed and 41 other people, including two warders, were injured Tuesday when irate prisoners set on fire a section of a jailhouse in northern Nigeria, a senior official said.
“We have lost two inmates in the fire outbreak which has razed the prison administrative blocks, while 39 others and two prison warders sustained various degrees of burns,” the head of Nigeria’s Federal Prison Service, Olusola Ogundipe told reporters.
He said the inmates of Kaduna prison had rioted to protest delays in prosecution and congestion in the facility “which has made life very difficult for inmates and in the process set a part of the prison on fire”.
Ogundipe said the prison, with a capacity for 524 inmates, has 790 prisoners.
“Out of this number, 539 inmates are awaiting trial, some of them for years,” adding that Tuesday’s fire was caused by those awaiting trial.
He said the situation had been brought under control and no inmates escaped.
Human rights groups have described conditions in Nigerian jails as appalling, with serious overcrowding and some inmates behind bars for years while awaiting trial.