Prisoners engage in agriculture through an innovative pilot project at a prison farm in Thuro Majok, a locality on the outskirts of the state capital, Wau. (Photo: Roseline Nzelle Nkwelle/UNMISS.)

Dozens of inmates at Wau Prison in Western Bahr El Ghazal State, where UNMISS said food insecurity is taking a toll, have turned to farming as part of their rehabilitation process and to avert starvation caused by food shortage.

The regional prison has run out of government-funded food supply on several occasions, leaving inmates acutely malnourished.

The latest was on May 2, 2023, when Wau Prison Director told Eye Radio about 1,125 inmates were starving after a government-contracted company suspended food supply to the prison over nine-month arrears accumulation.

The contractor in question resumed supply to the facility a while later, but the official nervously said he was unsure if the scenario wouldn’t happen again.

Meanwhile, UNMISS and the UN’S Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have now initiated a pilot project called the ‘Green Correction Initiative’ aimed at supporting the National Prison Service in containing the food insecurity and overcrowding challenges, UNMISS said.

Green Correction Initiative reportedly focuses on training the incarcerated in scientific ways to cultivate food crops as well as decongest the prison.

Major General Fidelle Mabior Majok, the State Director of Prisons reportedly said Wau Central Prison is currently holding more than 1,200 inmates in a space that is equipped to cater to a mere 200.

“We don’t have enough space for them to sleep, let alone enough food,” he added, according to an article published by UNMISS.

“We came up with the plan to transfer willing inmates to Thuro Majok, a locality on the outskirts of Wau, where the NPSS has around 200 acres at its disposal, and create a prison food farm,” said Joseph Banda, a Corrections Officer working with the UN Peacekeeping mission in Wau.

Banda said the initiative targets inmates with short prison terms of up to three months, or those nearing the end of their sentences to produce their own food.

Currently the Thuro Majok prison facility houses some 50 inmates at any given time, and they frequently rotate between being farmers and prisoners, according to the UN body.

With UNMISS and FAO providing tools, training on agronomic best practices, as well as seeds, and with a little elbow grease from willing participants, harvesting has begun in this innovative prison farm.

“It has been an immensely gratifying project. I was amazed to see the harvest at the Thuro Majok prison farm. We will continue supporting the farm by providing gunny bags and plastic sheets to enable proper processing and storage of produce,” said Tafiquil Islam, Head of the FAO Field Office in the state.

General Majok, the state prisons said he is impressed with the outcome of the farming and rehabilitation initiative.

“Currently, our storeroom has more than 200 bags of uncracked groundnuts, cowpeas, and sorghum. We will continue harvesting until December, when the round nuts will be ready. Additionally, some of this year’s yields will be used for the next planting season,” he stated.

Prison food contractors are commonly reported to be suspending food supply – leaving prisoners starving.

Similar incidents happened in Torit, where over 600 inmates were reportedly at risk of starvation.

Also in 2022, the administration of Juba Prison also complained about the suspension of food supply by a contractor due to unpaid arrears.

The Director General at the National Prisons Service recently decried underfunding of the institution saying much of its annual budget goes to feeding the inmates across the country.