A fire tore through an overcrowded maximum security prison in Cameroon’s port city of Douala on Thursday leading to the hospitalisation of three prisoners with serious burns, a local fire chief said.
“The operation was made more difficult by the layout and the large number of inmates,” fire brigade chief Kadrey Abdiel said.
The operation was made more difficult by the layout and the large number of inmates.
New Bell was built in the 1930s for 800 inmates, but held around 2,500 as of 2011, according to Amnesty International.
A few inmates had tried to climb over the prison’s walls, but police around the perimeter stopped them escaping, regional Governor Samuel Ivaha Diboua told journalists.
