Dungu, April 11th, 2025 (CPA) – The organization of mobile court hearings has been claimed to relieve overcrowding at the central prison of Dungu, in the province of Haut-Uele, in the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which is currently overcrowded with prisoners on prolonged preventive detention, as learned on Thursday from an association source.
‘We are asking the central government and the provincial executive to put in place the necessary resources to organize mobile court hearings in the province’s various jurisdictions in order to allow these detainees to know their fate. This will contribute to decongesting the prison’, has declared Alphonse Badi, from civil society.
‘We deplore that, to date, the Dungu central prison has a large number of prisoners, the majority of whom are in prolonged preventive detention’, he has added. ‘The prisoners are being held on preventive detention for long periods, up to more than 5 years, without appearing before their natural judge. We also deplore the dilapidated state of the prison buildings, where our brothers and sisters sleep in very precarious conditions.
We call for the real involvement of our authorities to find a lasting solution’, Alphonse Badi has insisted. He has pointed out that the prison has been built for a capacity of 150 inmates. It currently has more than 209 inmates, including 7 women and 2 children in conflict with the law. In total, 99 are convicted, including 41 soldiers and 58 civilians, as well as 2 women. In addition, there are 110 defendants, including 25 soldiers, 85 civilians and 5 women. He has lastly pleaded for the improvement of prison conditions for the inmates of this penitentiary centre, who are facing numerous difficulties, particularly in terms of food, logistics and health.