Tunde Sulaiman 
Some 1,685 “seriously ill” inmates have been released from one of the most notorious prisons in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the latest move to tackle overcrowding. The release began at Makala Prison in the capital, Kinshasa, on Sunday.
It was there, at the beginning of this month, that 129 prisoners died in an attempted jailbreak. Some were shot dead by security forces while others were killed in a crush, officials said.
The government pledged to speed up its plans to decongest the prison, where conditions have been described as “true hell”.
Some of the inmates identified for release can be seen in a series of images published on the justice ministry’s Facebook page, reports the BBC.
In one, an emaciated-looking man with dirty bandages around his right foot and below the knee is being pushed in a wheelbarrow.
