Over two dozen inmates at a Sulaimani prison have contracted the coronavirus, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s Minister of Labor and Social Affairs said.
The 27 affected inmates at the Sulaimani Adult Reform Directorate are in a “stable condition” and “have not shown any severe symptoms,” minister Kwestan Mohammed said.
Asked how the virus had entered the facilities, Mohammed told Rudaw English that it came from five employees who had contracted the virus outside the prison.
The minister’s announcement marks the first confirmation of COVID-19 cases among inmates in Sulaimani, the province so far hardest-hit by the pandemic.
A woman at the Erbil Women and Juveniles Reform Directorate was the first to be confirmed to have contracted the virus, Ziya Petros, head of the Kurdistan Region-based Independent Board of Human Rights (IBHR) told Rudaw last month.
Human rights organizations have warned since the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak that overcrowded prisons worldwide, including in the Kurdistan Region, could become breeding grounds for the virus.
Governments all over the world have since granted early or temporary release to inmates detained or charged with non-violent crimes.
Petros warned last month that the Kurdistan Region’s jails could foster widespread COVID-19 outbreaks unless the KRG drastically cut the prison population.
“The situation of the prisons of the Kurdistan Region is terrible. If a swift solution is not found, we will witness a catastrophe,” he said.
