140 Lusignan Prison inmates test positive for COVID-19

Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn on Tuesday announced that a total of 140 prisoners from the Lusignan Prison on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD) have tested positive for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

The announcement comes one week after the first two positives were detected at the Lusignan Prison.
He was at the time responding to questions without notice submitted by Opposition Member of Parliament (MP), Geeta Chanda-Edmond during the budget estimates. As such, it was disclosed that after the test results returned positive, some 80 inmates were transferred to a facility at Madewini, East Bank Demerara.
“At the moment, the total number of prisoners who are infected with COVID-19 are 140 persons. We have moved 80 of them to a Madewini location with the appropriate security from the police, prisons and the army.”

He shared that authorities were in the process of establishing measures to protect inmates at the Lusignan penitentiary earlier but the unrest on Saturday last, which resulted in the death of two inmates, would have hindered these efforts. Nevertheless, those works finally resumed on Monday.
“We were, at the very time that the incident occurred at Lusignan, were expanding an area to the east of the prison to put up tents and put in place cots and new beds for further social distancing. That work was peremptorily stopped as a result of the events on Saturday. It resumed yesterday morning (Monday) and I anticipate by tomorrow (today), we will be in a better position to move some of those prisoners who are at the Holding Bays over to that area and perhaps, bring back the infected ones to Lusignan,” Benn asserted.
On September 15, Director of Prisons, Gladwin Samuels informed in a press release that the two inmates were being held at the Holding Bay after their results returned positive. Circumstances surrounding how they contracted the virus were unknown at that time but contact tracing was enabled to curtail a large spread.
Minister Benn would have placed emphasis on the prison fires at Camp Street and Lusignan within the period of five years, which significantly limited capacity across the prisons and resulted in overcrowding. In fact, he said a recent visit showed that over 570 inmates were confined to a small space.
Back in July of this year, pandemonium broke out at the Lusignan penitentiary, East Coast Demerara, after a fire was reportedly set in one of the holding areas by protesting inmates after a team was dispatched to probe the discovery of narcotics.
On July 10, 2017, a massive fire destroyed most of the Georgetown Prison, thus resulting in the escape of several prisoners. One prison officer was shot and killed. The prisoners on the run had included Bartica and Lusignan massacre convict Mark “Royden” Durant aka “Royden Williams” and Uree Varswyck aka “Malcolm Gordon”. It was reported that the capital section of the Georgetown Prison was completely burnt, thus hundreds of prisoners were evacuated from the facility and taken to Lusignan, Timehri, New Amsterdam and Mazaruni.
Seventeen prisoners were burnt to death on March 3, 2016, at the same facility after inmates had set several fires in their holding cells in protest of the conditions of the prisons.
These incidents, which reduced holding areas at the prisons, resulted in the inmates being transferred to other penitentiaries across the country, thus creating congestion. While rehabilitation and construction across the various prisons were stalled due to COVID-19, Minister Benn said the contractors have been given the green light to continue. (G12)