The notorious dungeon cum prison of Mile 2 Central Prison in The Gambia is situated six minutes’ drive from the capital, Banjul. The national institution is the most dreaded place of abode for not only its ill-fated inmates but also the unfortunate wardens who find no alternative engagements than sign up for a job that involves the enforcement of a madman’s incarceration scheme.
To the eyes of the passers-by, who ply the Banjul- Serekunda highway, Mile 2 is just a mystery place – a small camp with floral decors and a high wall with seemingly nothing out of the ordinary in the world beyond it. However, to my shock and horror, I confirm the worst fears of many who suspected there was more to this place, that on the whole, there is indeed another world behind those high and thick walls. I have placed a huge warning signboard at one of its entrances. On the the board, it is written: STAY AWAY!!!
Here is a brief but maybe comprehensive description of what President Jammeh used to boast of as his five star hotel (Hotel Jammeh Yaa), which is divided into four different quarters bordered by 15 meter high six inch block fences.
* REMAND WING:- This is where more than 300 inmates are housed in a space meant for a hundred. It is where the suspects who are undergoing trial are kept. However, there are more than one hundred of them who have never appeared in court. More than that number has spent up to an average of seven years undergoing trial, while the rest have had their cases adjourned indefinitely. This is also where, on average, between 12 and 18 young men and women (some as young as 14) are herded in weekly from pickup trucks from around The Gambia’s ridiculously plentiful police stations and illegal arrest points.
* FEMALE WING:- As the name suggests, this three block complex is where female inmates are kept. The cells here are short-ceiling halls paralleled on both sides of each room with a two foot tall raised platform to serve as bed. Each of these cells has only one squat toilet and bathroom and a tap head. The cells are meant to contain only 15 but each is congested with more than forty inmates. As a male inmate, I could hear their sweet love songs but could not set an eye on anyone of them let alone dance to their sorrowful melodies. This is where I was told, a GNG sentry guard mounting on duties at the tower overlooking the female wing’s block facade, completely lost control of his emotions when he found himself face to face with an intentionally naked dancing girl. No one would have realized what transpired had his AK 47 assault rifle not slipped away from his trembling hands and landed with a clatter thud on the ground twenty meters below. From then on, till the day I left Mile 2, that particular tower was either mounted by a female soldier or by none at all.
* MAIN YARD:- This is the most densely populated part of the prison housing up to at least 980 inmates in just six blocks named by numbers. The cells are meant to house 40 inmates but each is jammed with an average of 150 forcing close to another 100 or so to sleep on the bare floor, in the toilets, and any little space they can find. I attempted to be a ‘mesh boy’ to enable me to enjoy some little privileges such as serve food, stay out during the day’s indoor hours etc but to no avail. That would have given me more room to investigate some of the statistics and demographics of the main yard where I only peeped but never stepped into. I met one Senegalese prisoner who confirmed to me that some spend years of their terms until their release without ever sleeping on the raised platforms or even with their legs stretched. Everyone is constricted and confined to a little space due to the congestive jamming of humans. In order to get to the toilet, one has to snake in between heads, feet and arms all through the way to the end of the cell. Almost every night, there is always someone sleeping on the toilet floor that has to be awakened first before anyone can access the toilet. Up to 20 inmates miss at least a meal every day.
* MAXIMUM SECURITY WING :- This is where I spent all my detention period. Unlike the other wings of this notorious dungeon, the MSW houses mainly detainees, death row inmates, senior Government Officials and Security Officers. It is also where punishment is routinely carried out by the masked forces that come from outside and the very prison wardens themselves. It is divided into four blocks namely:
Number One: this is the smallest of the four blocks. It has two squat toilets, one bathroom and a tap to serve twelve individual cells. This is where Sanna Sabally was. The links used to chain his legs and the irons that were used for tethering his hands are still in the cell now occupied by a Nigerian National, Stanley, one of the duo convicted for lynching a Briton. Number Seven: This is just like the cells in the main yard. It is an open hall meant for housing 30 but it contains on average 45 inmates. Old and sick inmates are kept here if they’re not on death row. There’s one toilet, one bathroom and an open tap, two naked electric bulbs and the wing’s only television screen and fm radio receiver.
Number Four: Like Number One, this block contains two squat toilets, a tap and two bathrooms serving 32 cells.
Number Five: I was in this block. It has 86 individual cells, three squat toilets, four bathrooms but only one tap. As of 21st January 2015, 84 to 86 cells were occupied. This complex was designed by a Gambian and its difference from those cells like Numbers 1 & 4 could reveal a lot about how some Gambians perceive those whom fate has ordained imprisonment. The cells here are worse in every aspect than those built by the British.
DAILY ROUTINE Everyday at 08:00hrs, prison officers open the locks to our individual cells and we would rush to the toilets to empty our chamber pots with bad and pungent odor all over the block. We lived constantly under this bad environment every morning. Outside the cells, another bad odor also takes precedence. It comes from the badly managed Banjul Sanatorium located just 300 meters east of the prison. Sometimes there is fire and the bad smoke from the dumpsite hangs in the air choking us to the core with acrylic plastic, and poorly disposed off medical and clinical wares. The complex is very narrow and there is nowhere to go. The walls both in and out are painted grey. There is no green plant visible from the inside. This has caused serious consequences on our eyesight as well as respiratory infections.
After a quick but well deserved bath, we would venture out to wash our basins, refill water bottles and do the normal pleasantries with our fellow inmates and the morning shift officers who had just come from the other world outside of our prison walls.
Those who had something to eat, do so and that begins the first half of the day.
Standby is at 11:15 am. It means everyone should prepare for another lock up session in 15 minutes. By midday the camp is as quiet as the Earlington Cemetary except for the overhead 8 ohms speakers booming West Coast Radio relay of BBC Newshour.
After the one hour foreign media news on events in the outside world which to some of the inmates seem so imaginary, GRTS radio would bring us the day’s monotonously irrelevant yahya jammeh praise singsongs read by mostly a very highly untrained anchor who would be counting the syllables making the words or when (at least once) unable to recall how to pronounce a word, try to spell it instead.
At 2 pm, we are opened again for the second and final half of the day. Some go playing draft while others rush for the TV screen to make follow ups of how some films ended, match results and for some of us, this was the best time to mentally summarize the day’s events and memorize them since maintaining a diary is punishable by treason.
Shifts change is at 15:30. To mark this, every inmate is ordered to stand by their cell door for the incoming shift to confirm that they were alive and kicking. The fiesta continues till 16:45 when the Azhaan is called for prayers. Immediately after the Asr prayers, the day has ended in Hotel Jammeh Yaa. We are indoors from now till 8 am the following day. A peep through the post hole shows a line of new quarter kilo padlocks each confining someone’s father, husband, brother, or son.
THE CONDITIONS OF THE CELLS
In Number Five, all the cells are of the same dimension 1.80X2.10M. Each is equipped with a chamber box at one corner and a 0.75M wide concrete raised platform on the opposite to serve as bed. The only difference between these cells and a grave is the 20CM diameter hole born at the upper part of the heavy metal door and a thickly barred opening right under the concrete ceiling that serves as a window. We sometimes exhausted the fresh air and feel void of breathable oxygen. Each cell has a 5litre mayonnaise bucket to serve as toilet. Once full before 8AM, one has no option but to urinate within the cell. A 1.5 bottle of water is also provided for drinking.
DAILY PROGRAM
8:00-11:30 first rest 12:00-14:00 indoors 14:00-17:00 second rest 17:30-08:00 indoors
SANITATION
The toilets have NEVER seen even Omo (a cheap cleaning detergent) let alone any form of detergent. It is usually cleaned with ash from the kitchen. Most of the time, they are in horrible conditions as mentally and seriously sick inmates abuse them.
DAILY RATION
The format I am using here is as follows:
Day= b/fast, lunch and dinner.
S=half bread empty, meat stew and dry coos M=Porridge. Palm oil fish stew and dry coos. T= half bread, palasass, porridge W=half bread, benechin, dry coos T=Porridge, groundnut stew, thiouraa F=half bread, groundnut stew and dry coos and S=thiouraa, palm oil fish stew and dry coos.
These foods don’t conform to any recognized standard. Even the imitated “benachin” in Kanilai couldn’t be worse. The cooks who are men have no qualifications and as a result, most of us in there develop stomach complications as a result of poorly cooked or rotten condiments. The “Thiouraa” (CHUURAA GERTEH) that is served on Saturdays is confirmed to be the cause of a disease I have never heard of till I got into that hole: BIRI BIRI, which makes one look like pumped with hot air like a tractor tire. All the good fish is shared among the Senior Officers of the Prison. On Mondays, the meat served on the rice which they compelled me to call stew, is either rotten or only joints with sharp bones protruding from the lunch basins like spikes and spears.
PUNISHMENT
Types I witnessed as practiced include, drop bathing, caning, lashing, denial of food and rest, sealing, denial of bathing, kneeling with hands raised, public stripping to nakedness, physical assault, donate-the-flies drip to death and injection to either increase sexual libido in the absence of women or to increase hunger with powerful multi vitamins in the absence of food. In Mile 2 Jammeh Resort and Spa, the waiters are usually hungrier than the customers. Stories I could not confirm indicate that the principal torture centre is found in Tanji, where electrocutions, water budding, drowning etc are carried out by the security elements. There is also the old well where I am told people are mass-graved. To spare you some of the worst horrors you may ever imagine, my conscience compels me to euphemize the narrative to laze it with some humor to downgrade the harm I am exposing you to. Some of the horrors are too horrible and I am obliged to repress them in my memory for a while and some for eternity.
Momodou Sowe Former Protocol Officer and Records Manager Office of The President, State House, Banjul. Now Asylum Seeker and Advocate for Rights Activism
