In what can be understood as one of the most tragic news stories in recent times, 44 prisoners in Africa’s Chad have died due to scorching heat and dehydration. The investigations into the matter have shown that the 44 prisoners had been compelled to stay jointly inside a small prison cell while the temperatures soared to more than 46 degrees centigrade.
While the government maintains that all the 44 prisoners were militants, the National Human Rights Commission maintains that they were ordinary civilians.
The report described the cause of their death to be scorching heat, thirst and hunger. The 44 prisoners were discovered dead inside the prison cell on April 15, 2020 but the news came into the limelight when the National Human Rights Commission raised an alarm. Firstly, the commission disagreed with the government and said that the inmates were not militants but civilians and said that they didn’t die because of the consumption of poison but due to heat and dehydration. Ill treatment and brutality at the hands of the officials could have been behind their sudden and collective deaths.
The over-crowded and extremely suffocating prison cells where the inmates were seldom given food or water and all their pleas for better treatment were brutally denied, the prisoners succumbed to the conditions in which they found themselves.
The prisoners who continue to live in that prison say that the heat and thirst may be responsible for the death of the fellow-prisoners and also mentioned that despite their asking for help, the authorities turned a deaf ear to them and continued to ignore all their requests.
