Kondengui prison inmates threaten hunger strike after Mendouga's death

After the death of Jérôme Mendouga, Kondengui inmates are preparing to go on a hunger strike.

Kondengui inmates decry the poor conditions of detention including the lack of care and suffocation that prevails in the prison. They believe this has been the main cause of deaths in the prison.

Due to this, prisoners in Kondengui have decided to go on a hunger strike. "Some would say that they are going on a hunger strike. After all what do they eat? But we all are striking to show the degree of anger and determination to make things change around here".

At Yaounde Kondengui central prison, there is an unusual atmosphere. The atmosphere has been so dense since the announcement of the death of the former Ambassador of Cameroon to the USA, Jérôme Mendouga, who died at the general hospital in Yaoundé, Saturday, November 15, 2014, after only 3 weeks of admission at the hospital.

In Kondengui, it is far from being a question of destiny or fate. Prisoners complained bitterly, "we have barely finished mourning the death of Engoulou and here is another death, under the same conditions. Inmates have questions, and we must react," suggested one of them.

And another argued: "we were arrested and kept in detention by the State thus, the State has certain requirements to fulfil to make us survive. It must ensure that we have nutrition, we are clothed and given treatment when we are sick, but this has not been the case".