Detained for a Dream by MSF Picturedesk

DETAINED FOR A DREAM BEHIND THE WALLS OF MALAWI’S HARSHEST PRISONS

Text by Umberto Pellecchia Photographs by Luca Sola The worst is at night. The heat emanating from dozens upon dozens of bodies is so stifling it’s palpable. The men are squeezed together on the cement floor, with a space of less than half a square metre per person on average. Packed tightly like battery hens for fifteen hours a day, the inmates sit up in rows, their heads lolling on their knees, occasionally rolling onto a neighbour’s shoulder. This is the harsh reality of overcrowding in Maula prison, in the Malawi capital of Lilongwe. Built to accommodate 800 prisoners, Maula is bursting at the seams with 2,650 inmates. Amongst this desperate population, the most vulnerable are the nearly 300 undocumented migrants who were arrested as they travelled towards South Africa. These men represent the reality of our mobile world, where people are on the move, seeking refuge from violence and inequality or escape from chronic poverty. Lacking any kind of resources, they left their countries of origin in the hope of building a decent life in South Africa. A dream denied at home, that dramatically ended up in Malawi’s prisons. It is a bright June morning when I visit Maula prison to assess the living conditions of foreigners who have been deemed by the court as illegal migrants. The sun shines a bleak light on the daily realities of migrants held together with common-law oﬀenders, some of whom are serving long sentences for violent crimes. “We are 204 in this cell,” says Thomas, a Malawian inmate, pointing to the number written on a blackboard in the 60 square-metre cell. He introduces me to a group of young Ethiopians sitting outside in the sun. “It gives us Vitamin D,” jokes Abeba, a man in his thirties from Durame, Ethiopia. “We are not criminals! But now, in prison, we are not human anymore,” he says. The number of foreign citizens, mostly Ethiopians, detained in Malawi for illegal entry has increased in the past few years, becoming a phenomenon of humanitarian concern. Most of them have been charged for three months, but the reality is that they have been locked away for more. The law requires they return to their homelands after their periods of detention, but bureaucratic delays impede any way forward. Moreover, they are supposed to cover their expenses for repatriation, a contradiction to their weak economic status.

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Previous Page: A prison guard closes the prison's main gate as she shouts to prisoners' relatives that visiting time is over.

A young boy leaning on a wall tells me, “My dream is to reach South Africa; this is what I have worked towards for years. I knew it would be difficult, but I never thought I’d end up here. I thought Africans were all brothers. But here… here it seems different.” He stares at me, as if questioning for the first time what he had always thought to be true. Three young men are grading beans outside their cell. “You see? These are not good. They are uncooked and rotten,” says one of the men. “We eat them like that,” another inmate adds. Prisoners in Maula get food only once a day. They usually eat a plate of nsima – ground maize that fills the stomach but doesn’t give many nutrients. Beans are an occasional treat. Nutrition is so poor that last month MSF had to treat 18 inmates for moderate-to-severe malnutrition. Ethiopians follow a long-standing pattern of migration towards South Africa, their beacon of light. “Where we live, there is not enough land for everyone, we are too many in my family,” says Abeba, counting with the fingers on both hands the number of brothers in his family. “If I go to South Africa, after two or three years I can afford to buy a house. If you work for twenty years in Ethiopia you can’t buy anything,” he says. Another young Ethiopian adds, “If you need a job there, you have to belong to a certain family that has land. My family doesn’t have any.” For many, leaving the country wasn’t a choice. It was their last hope for survival. Emmanuel pulls out his torn wallet, opens it and shows me the transparent sleeve inside. Instead of pictures, it holds his talisman: a piece of paper with three phone numbers on it. “These are my friends in South Africa,” he says. In the courtyard of the prison, Abeba gazes at the other inmates playing football. I ask him if he wants to go back to his country. He turns his head towards me, with a serious smile too mature for his age. “We can’t go back,” he says. “If we go back to Ethiopia, what could we do there? We can’t work anymore. We have become too sick for any kind of work.” Umberto Pellecchia is an anthropologist working with Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Umberto conducted indepth interviews with inmates at Lilongwe’s Maula prison where MSF has been working since mid-2014.

As of 20 July there were 193 Ethiopian migrants detained in Maula prison because of their illegal status. They were all on their way to South Africa is hope for a better future. They are detained all together in a single cell designed to house 50 to 60.

A prison officer checks the prisoners in their cell before locking them for the night. Overcrowding is a critical problem in Malawian jails. Chichiri Prison was built to house 800 prisoners instead of the 2000 currently detained there.

A prisoner lies on the ground (L) trying to rest after a night spent awake in an overcrowded cell.

Maula Prison.

Muslim detainees from Ethiopia pray together in Chichiri prison.

A Congolese man sits in his cell as he practices his English in preparation for his final school exam.

Overview of an overcrowded cell portrayed early in the morning (6am). The prisoners are waiting the authorization to go out to the common space after some 14 hours spent in these conditions.

Prisoners sit in an overcrowded cell (Cell Number 5) during the night, struggling to Number sleep.

A juvenile prisoner, sentenced to 3 years for theft is seen against the backdrop in his decorated cell wall.

Prisoners sit in an overcrowded cell (cell 5) during the night, struggling to sleep.

Tamsgen Bakele, 18yo, from Ethiopia. He left Ethiopia around October 2014 due to the bad economical conditions and the lack of work and food. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My family does not produce enough food because we are poorâ&#x20AC;?, he says.Tamsgen is one of the few Muslim Ethiopians in Maula Prison. He is portrayed in the prison's mosque.

Kadri Osebo, 29, comes from Awasa in Ethiopia. He is one of the Ethiopians that are in custody at Maula prison for entering Malawi illegally.

Prisoners take a shower before being locked in their cells for the night. Chichiriâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inmates share one shower between 180 people, whereas the minimum MSF standard during humanitarian crisis (such as in a camp for displaced people) is one shower per 40 people. Thanks to MSF's intervention the prisoners have been given access to the water throughout the day in several sector of the prison.

A prison officer sits in his personal quarters inside the prison's worker compound. Due to the difficult economical conditions, the Malawian Government is unable to provide housing or good sanitary conditions for many of the prison staff. For this reason MSF decided to also provide for the needs of the staff as well as for the intimates.

A member of the MSF medical staff examines a patient. Detainees in Maula high security prison in Lilongwe, Malawi, often suffer from poor health due to inadequate conditions of detention.

30-year-old Emmanne Shahah left Ethiopia for South Africa to look for greener pasture but ended up arrested and imprisoned in Malawi due to illegal entry. He said that ĂŹonce released he would return to Ethiopia. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am a student, I come from Durame. Durame is a town that developed in 2007. Most of the people do agriculture, but there is not enough land for all. I can say that overall there is economic crisis.â&#x20AC;?

Tasfaya Lanago, 18, left Ethiopia due to economic hardship. He arrived in Malawi in December 2014 but immediately upon arrival was arrested for illegal entry to the country. In February 2015, he was sentenced to six months imprisonment at Maula prison.

MSF Prison Coordinator, Caroline Aluda (R) briefs her local colleagues, in Maula, about needs and results of the last weeks.

An MSF nurse performing a blood test on a new inmate to check for any conditions to report in his personal medical folder.

Food distribution in Chichiri Prison. Prisoners are fed just once a day, due to the small budget that Malawian Government allocates to the penal system. The quality of the food is miserable â&#x20AC;&#x201C; six days of Nsima (boiled corn flour with no salt or other ingredients) and boiled beans once a week. As a consequence cases of malnutrition are common.

Prison guard and workers rest in the prison kitchen after meal time. Every day the prisoners who work in the kitchen cook more than 500 kilos of Nsima (ground maize flour) and around 100 kilos of beans.

Prisoners in Maula eat only once a day, typically a plate of Nsima (maize flour), sometimes with beans or vegetable. Protein is almost entirely absent from their diet and the Ethiopian group in particular is suffering from skin conditions related to protein deficiency because the Malawian staple food is incompatible with their traditional eating habits (the Ethiopian staple is Nnjera a protein rich pancake).

Prison officer in the female section of Chichiri. "I feel safer since we have a clinic in the prison as well medical staff that take care also of us, the prison staff".

Tasfaya Lanago (centre, right) is 18 years old. He left Ethiopia due to economic hardships and arrived in Malawi in December 2014. Travelling with fellow Ethiopians they were arrested when they arrived in the country and sentenced to 6 months imprisonment at Maula prison for

Maula Prison. Wednesday are the national day of sport in Malawi and prisoners that want play soccer (men) or basketball (women) are permitted to.

Chichiri Prison, Malawi.