Buea Prison: Three inmates die of electrocution, others injured

Three inmates who were almost at the end of their prison terms were killed as they took part in prison activities, CNA learned.

The incident occurred on October 27, 2023, but the Prison administration did not make “noise” about it. Cameroon News Agency received information from a relative of a victim who told the newsroom that the Prisoners were mounting canopies and preparing the ceremonial ground for warders to celebrate after their epaulet award ceremony earlier that day, “That is all they told us”

The prisoners in the course of mounting the canopies, mistakenly lifted a rod that went higher and touched a high-tensioned cable that was just 10m high. It electrocuted all seven, killing three on the spot, while two were on oxygen, and two were out of danger.

The corpses of Karlington from C ward, Vitalis from the A ward, and Brandon, K ward, were all deposited at the Buea Regional Hospital mortuary as pressure mounted on the Prison administrators to produce their bodies. CNA reached out to the Director of the Buea Regional Hospital, Dr. Mokake for comments, but he did not respond to the WhatsApp message.

When CNA reached out to an administrator who works at the Penitentiary in the South West region and had knowledge of the incident, the source said the Prison administrators blamed electricity distribution company ENEO for the incident because they had sent several warnings to the company of a nearly fallen high tensioned pole, ” It wasn’t inside the prison. They went to work around the surrounding of the prison’s premises. So there was a high tension cable which was too low to the surface which the Administration has called to the attention of ENEO on several occasions but shown to react.”

But the workers came immediately when the incident was reported to them, ” And immediately that happened, the ENEO workers came to the scene to get into work immediately. I learned it wasn’t easy with the prison staff and ENEO workers that for always neglecting people’s worries when tabled but popping in when something worse happened,” the source furthered

CNA learned that the victims were on their way to freedom but caught face-to-face with death, “Actually when the prison term of an inmate is near to an end, they are given the opportunity to go out and keep the prison premises clean as part of the preparation to reinsertion into the society and to begin to acquaint themselves with the outside world. That is done through the supervision of the staff.”