Gunfire, gang rapes and missing inmates: Inside a deadly DRC jailbreak

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo – It was two hours after midnight last Monday when the first bursts of gunfire rang out in Selembao municipality, south of Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The shots, some deafening, created panic among residents who traced the ruckus to Makala central prison and wondered what could be happening.

Soon after – in videos that went viral on social media – footage emerged of prisoners brandishing torches as they made their way through the darkness, before the situation degenerated when the sound of locks being forced mingled with screams and the thumping of bullets.

In the aftermath, Congolese authorities said there was an attempted jailbreak at Makala –  which holds 10 times the capacity it was built to take. They said at least 129 prisoners were killed – some shot by security forces, others crushed and suffocated.

Authorities said no one escaped. However, inmates and prisoners’ rights groups say there are nearly 2,000 fewer prisoners in Makala now than before the incident.

Though details of what transpired last Monday remain unclear, several inmates inside the prison spoke to Al Jazeera by phone to piece together what they saw and heard. They described hours of frenzy and fear – as prisoners were shot and crushed, structures were destroyed and female inmates were gang-raped.

In response to questions from Al Jazeera, Patrick Muyaya, a Congolese government spokesperson, confirmed some of what the inmates described, including instances of rape. He said an investigation had been launched into what happened at Makala – and whether security personnel used excessive force, as rights groups have alleged.

How the ‘uprising’ started

“The power [in the prison] was cut off from 9pm” on Sunday, a female prisoner, who we are calling Alice to protect her safety, told Al Jazeera. The outage was confirmed by other sources who said it was unusual in the area as Makala is near a military base. Muyaya, the government spokesperson, said he could not confirm whether the power was cut.

“At around midnight, we heard a vehicle enter the main gate and we don’t understand why, it’s unusual,” Alice said. “Then we heard the sound of people breaking open a door. Then the uprising started.”

It is unclear who was in the vehicle, how it managed to enter the prison complex and whether it was tied to the uprising. Muyaya said authorities could not provide details until the government’s investigation concluded.

Video posted on social media showed men trying to squeeze through the bars of their cell. Speaking to each other, some among them say a group has already escaped and left a cell door open, so they should take their chance to get out. Then they say those running towards the gate have been ambushed.

A male inmate we are calling Jean to protect his safety told Al Jazeera the commotion began in block four of the prison’s 11 pavilions before spreading to other blocks.

“It was very hot that day,” he said. “People were sweating and they were angry, and they tried to break out. One group was breaking open a wall, and a staircase collapsed on many people [killing them]. Others managed to get to the main gate and they were all shot down by the guards. Many were killed trying to get out.”

Video posted online showed the bodies of those killed, many half-dressed, their hair dishevelled as they lay piled up on the ground. Activists say it’s likely many more people than the government’s official tally were killed.

‘I was raped by several people’

While groups of men were storming towards the main gates, Alice said a different kind of violence was being meted out in the women’s section.

“In the middle of the prison break … [male prisoners] broke the door of the women’s block and they started raping us,” she said. “They came with knives and razor blades and if you refused they said they’d kill you.”

Alice witnessed one woman being raped by more than a dozen men, while an elderly woman was also assaulted. “It was horrible. I couldn’t believe it with my own eyes.”

Thinking on her feet, Alice said she “put mustard on my body and told the rapists that I was sick and that they could be contaminated and that’s why I was not raped”.

She also gave the attackers money and other material possessions she had in her cell to urge them to spare her.

Two women who were not as lucky spoke to Al Jazeera.

“I was raped by several people, I don’t even know what happened and I am wondering what kind of justice we have in this country,” one woman said. “Now I’m not even able to stand or walk properly because of what they did to me.”

Alice estimated that more than 100 women were raped that day.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) also spoke to female prisoners who were assaulted. “None of these women has received appropriate medication,” one inmate told the rights group.

Muyaya, the government spokesman, told Al Jazeera: “Women unfortunately were victims of raping by other prisoners … and [the] government is providing some assistance.”

A screen grab from video shared on social media in July showed the dire conditions inside Makala central prison, with inmates sleeping on top of each other [Screengrab/Stanis Bujakera]

‘A corridor of death’

Makala prison was built in 1957 to accommodate 1,500 people, but currently holds between 14,000 and 15,000 detainees, according to official figures – the vast majority of them men. Activists say nearly three-quarters of inmates have never been tried in court.

Rights groups have long criticised the dire conditions inside Makala.

Video shared online in July by Congolese journalist Stanis Bujakera, who was held there for six months, showed inmates drinking out of buckets on the ground and sleeping piled on top of one another, with barely any space to move between them.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, current and former inmates said there is no food or clean water; people die regularly from malnutrition and diseases; and prisoners pay guards and prison bosses to get a piece of the floor to sleep on.

Inmate Jean, who has been detained in Makala since 2020, told Al Jazeera he pays the guards to sleep in a “VIP” section of his block, where he gets a little more space and food brought in from the outside. “If you pay, they grant you a small space to sleep in, not on top of one another. It’s a big business,” he said.

Jacky Ndala, a former inmate who was held in the prison in 2021, told Al Jazeera he paid nearly $1,000 to stay in a VIP wing when he was there – but it’s not something most can afford.

“For a normal prisoner, Makala is a corridor of death,” Ndala said. “There are no humane conditions in which one can survive. We have to say it clearly, that to go to Makala as a normal person today, is going to die.”

Bienvenu Matumo, a human rights activist with Lutte pour le Changement (LUCHA), a social justice group working in the DRC, was also detained in Makala for seven months in 2016 after demonstrating against the regime of then-President Joseph Kabila.

Although he doesn’t condone escapes, Matumo said the inhumane conditions at Makala can make people desperate.

“When I was in prison, I heard a fable that said that jailbreaking is a prisoner’s right. I don’t subscribe to this view, but the deplorable conditions can push prisoners to this path of escape,” he said.

He is also outraged by what happened last week, and criticises the “disproportionate” use of force against unarmed detainees by security forces and law enforcement.

“It’s not an incident, but rather a bloodshed that took place at Makala prison. We saw the bodies of people who had been shot at point-blank range,” he told Al Jazeera.

Muyaya told Al Jazeera that he would wait for the investigation into what happened last week before commenting on allegations of excesses, but added that “security has to take some measures to avoid escaping of prisoners in such a populated area”.

Regarding the accusations of guards taking bribes, the spokesperson acknowledged that there were “a lot of things” at Makala that needed improvement and that Justice Minister Constant Mutamba was “handling it”.

“The main priority is to work on unclogging [the prison]; this can help to stop these kinds of practices,” he said.

‘Act of sabotage’

Makala has “massive overcrowding, poor infrastructure, and inadequate resources,” HRW noted, and its Central Africa Director Lewis Mudge called on authorities to “take decisive measures immediately to improve the living conditions” at the facility.

But overcrowding and dire conditions are an almost universal predicament in detention facilities in DRC, according to Goma-based human rights activist Dieumerci Mungu Akonkwa.

He reported, for example, that Goma’s central prison was built for a capacity of 350 people, but now houses over 4,000. “Our prisons are overcrowded, and this undermines respect for human dignity, which is not encouraging,” he told Al Jazeera.

Last week’s incident was not the first jailbreak at Makala. There were previous attempts, including in 2017 when more than 4,000 people escaped after an attack by armed men at night.

Rights groups say the prison overpopulation problem is made worse because most inmates there have never stood trial. Some have waited more than 20 years to go to court, and there has also been a spike in arbitrary detentions of government critics in the last year.

​​In February, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi acknowledged the problem and described the justice system as “sick, even when it comes to processing court cases”.

Prisoners at Makala central prison live in deplorable conditions, inmates and activists say [Justin Makangara/Reuters]

After journalist Bujakera shared video from inside Makala in July, it prompted an outcry in the country.

The justice minister, Mutamba, also announced the creation of a commission to rule on the “decongestion” of the DRC’s “overcrowded” prisons. And he launched a programme aimed at reducing overcrowding by releasing some inmates.

This is welcomed by activist Matumo, who accuses authorities of putting the issue of improving prison conditions at the bottom of its list of priorities. Matumo calls for the justice ministry programme to be sped up.

However, after last week’s incident, Minister Mutamba said magistrates were still sending people to Makala prison for their punishment. He blamed magistrates for contributing to the alleged jailbreak.

“It’s an act of sabotage, not an escape,” Mutamba said. “Every time I’ve decongested the prison, the magistrates have sent double the number of inmates. Since I started releasing prisoners, how many inmates have been sent here again? That’s when we’ll find out where this sabotage started. So, we’re going to take serious action.”

The accusations were rejected by the magistrates, who deny any involvement in the escape attempt, stressing that the problems lie elsewhere.

“Prisons overcrowding has become a monumental problem, exacerbated by rising crime rates. The Bureau, [the high council of the judiciary], stressed that the solution to this crisis requires not only the construction of new prisons, but also strict enforcement of laws on detention and the prison regime,” they said in a statement last week.

Lives cut short by ‘barbarity’

Muyaya, the Congolese government spokesperson, denied that anyone escaped during the attempted prison break last week. But the Bill Clinton Peace Foundation, a DRC-based human rights NGO that monitors the detention situation in the country’s prisons, and inmates in Makala said a roll call revealed almost 2,000 people to be missing.

HRW also said the prison’s administrative buildings were destroyed in the escape attempt, including its archives, which creates problems in identifying the number and identities of the detainees in Makala.

Meanwhile, local media reported that the detainees who tried to escape are being tried before a military court, and risk additional time being added to their sentences.

Prisoners’ relatives waited outside Makala prison to inquire about the condition of their family members after the attempted jailbreak [Hardy Bope/AFP]

At the same time, Makala prison director Joseph Yusufu Maliki was suspended by the justice minister; he is now on the run and wanted by the Congolese authorities.

In October 2023, Maliki had written a letter to the Ministry of Justice, informing it of a “suspected conspiracy at Makala central prison”.  In the same document, seen by Al Jazeera, he stated that the Makala penitentiary area is not “a high-security prison”.

In the days following the incident at the prison, security was stepped up in the vicinity, with soldiers patrolling the streets surrounding Makala. But residents said life soon returned to normal.

For inmates and the families of those killed, though, the feeling is one of “bitterness” following the killings, according to their legal representatives.

Congolese Interior Minister Jacquemain Shabani said that a commission would be created to investigate the incident. The families and their lawyers will be following developments closely.

“Our clients are distressed that the lives of their loved ones have been cut short by this human barbarity, and it’s unacceptable,” said a lawyer representing the families. “Justice must be done,” he added, speaking anonymously.

Meanwhile, human rights activists are united in their condemnation of the situation that led to the loss of so many lives. They have called for an independent commission to be set up to re-establish responsibility and for people to be held accountable.

“Prisoners have the right to life and dignified conditions,” said Matumo. “Let those who violate their fundamental rights be held accountable.”