Somalia: Puntland Custodial Corps on strike over salaries

GAROWE, Somalia-Puntland prisons officers have gone on strike for a seven-month unpaid salaries in a bid to draw the attention of government to substandard conditions at prisons across the northeastern State, Garowe Online has learned.

The week-long protest had already impeded fragile prison system, with convicted defendants being sent back while those who have completed their terms continue to languish in. 

Custodial Corps have not been paid for up to five months, and inmates did not get any support services including food over three months, an officer who asked to remain anonymous told GO.

“We are being lent foodstuffs by grocers to have a meal for inmates, now for three months. Each and every custodial crops officer is like a prisoner here, no one has the freedom to dawdle like others from the army and police,” seethed the disgruntled officer.  

Cases have reportedly piled up at a police station in Garowe after central prison rejected a demand to receive those to be arraigned in courts. At least 22 people including murderers arebeing kept on pretrial detention, police sources confirmed.  

Except for Puntland MPs, civil servants and security forces organized a series of strikes and mutinies respectively in the last two years due to long overdue entitlements.  

Puntland Defence Forces are locked in years of sporadic clashes with Al Shabaab militants on rough terrains along Golis Mountain Ranges.

GAROWEONLINE