Issue No.712

Inside Somalia's Prisons

Earlier this month, several inmates in Mogadishu's Central Prison attempted to break out, slaying at least three guards before being killed themselves. The prisoners, all convicted Al-Shabaab militants, were able to lay their hands upon the jail's weapons, including grenades, in a well-orchestrated plan. It was the apparent latest in a string of insider attacks by Al-Shabaab in the capital this year, following the General Gordon military base shooting that left four Emirati military officials dead in February and the SYL Hotel attack in March.
 
The foiled break-out attempt has also drawn renewed attention to the patchwork state of Somalia's prisons today. Many of the prisons built during the Italian colonial period and Siad Barre's regime have fallen into disrepair, with poor sanitation and hygiene the norm. Just three prisons in Somalia are believed to grant prisoners daily access to food, water, exercise, and showers— the Mogadishu Central Prison, Garowe Prison, and the newer Mogadishu Prison and Court Complex that was built in 2019. Even in these prisons, inmates rely upon their families and networks to supplement limited food and healthcare.
 
Overcrowding in particular remains a significant issue across prisons in Somalia, with inmates often crowded 10+ to a cell. Following major security incidents that necessitate the detention of dozens of individuals, prisons badly lack absorption capacity. Diseases, including tuberculosis and cholera, routinely break out in these overcrowded conditions, spreading like wildfire through a jail's population. As a result of the dank and dark conditions in Somalia's prisons, tuberculosis is a significant problem. And with no quality and consistency of medicines, the disease often becomes drug-resistant and permeates further.

With healthcare costs typically falling upon an inmate's family, the quality and consistency of care can radically differ from prisoner to prisoner. Those with weaker ties to their clan and families can undergo far harsher incarceration than their cellmates without access to supplementary food and support. On Islamic holy days, particularly during the Holy Month of Ramadan, prisoners may enjoy select benefits, including better food at the largesse of international charities. As is tradition across much of the Muslim world, the federal government often pardons several dozen prisoners convicted of more minor offences.
 
Precise numbers of prisoners and their respective crimes are difficult to ascertain, with records limited across much of Somalia. In 2019 in Puntland, though, the Kaalo Aid and Development Organisation estimated that there were 792 prisoners across four prisons—Garowe, Bosasso, Gardo, and Galka'yo. Bosasso held the greatest number of inmates, with 355, of whom 268 had been convicted, and 87 were on remand. Just 5 prisoners in Bosasso were women, and they made up less than 10 across the northern Federal Member State. Numbers of federal prisoners, however, are unknown, with records not publicly available, if they even exist.
 
In Puntland, which grapples with far less Al-Shabaab activity than South-Central Somalia, it is believed that fewer jihadists are imprisoned, while in Baidoa and Kismaayo, cities nearer the epicentre of the extremist insurgency, there are naturally higher numbers of jailed extremists. Notably, Somalia's incarcerated population is not only restricted to prosecution under secular law, with sizeable numbers imprisoned due to perceived breaches of Shari'a or clan-based customary law, known as 'xeer.' Some of these jailed are known as 'rehabilitation inmates,' having been imprisoned due to minor infringements on social norms and etiquette, perhaps either smoking or disobeying a clan elder. In particular, this often applies to women, who make up a tiny percentage of the wider prison population. There is also little differentiation between higher-risk prisoners and those awaiting trial. Prisoners serving life for murder can be held next to those under 18 who may have drunk a beer pending court. And there can be months-long detention periods before a trial is heard due to Somalia's corrupt and limited formal judicial system.
 
Prisons are an extension of the political landscape of any given administration and its priorities. In Somalia, the former dictator, Siad Barre, was notorious for incarcerating his critics and political opposition. Jails such as the Mandera Prison in today's Somaliland were once used to hold hundreds of political prisoners, including those who campaigned for the polity's independence. Two famous attacks in January 1983 and May 1988 by the guerrilla Somali National Movement freed hundreds of these prisoners.
 
Returning to the present day, though still deeply flawed, the prison system in Somalia is a far cry from the 1980s. There are some relatively well-regarded prisons in Somalia which are at least attempting to adhere to international standards. Torture and beatings are rarer, and there are also few political prisoners in Somalia's jails, though one might argue that the growing incarceration of journalists constitutes such. The wielding of criminal law to restrict press freedom during President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's first term between 2012 and 2017 appears to be returning in full force.
  
Judicial and prison reform are a complicated business in any country. In many societies, there remains an instinctive urge that prison must be a place to 'punish' convicts, with rehabilitation a secondary concern. In Somalia, though, an element of rehabilitation can be found within xeer-- when blood money or restitution is paid, the offender is considered to be fully restored. This reflects the continued reality that, in many ways, the country's judicial system remains secondary to the broader, more amorphous xeer.
 
The Mogadishu Central Prison attack has sensibly led to the removal of its senior officials and a review process of security protocol. But wider judicial and prison reform is required to tackle the more mundane issues of overcrowding, sanitation issues, the jailing of 'rehabilitation inmates,' and lengthy pre-trial detention periods. While these may not regularly make the headlines, they define the daily lives of Somalia's prison population.

by the Somali Wire Team