Life in Mozambican prison faces numerous problems. Overcrowding, hygiene and difficult medical care, food shortages and more. All of these put human rights at risk. The Community of Sant'Egidio has been working for decades in prisons, especially in the main provincial capitals, with its network of Communities that bring the Gospel, concrete help such as food, clothes, hygiene material, legal assistance, etc.
A major problem is overcrowding. Consider that the capacity of prisons nationwide is estimated at around 8,000 inmates while at the end of 2023 it was 25,000. This causes enormous problems: just consider that prisoners in some prisons are forced to take turns to lie down at night.
Over the years, Sant'Egidio has found more solid and structural answers, such as the construction of infirmaries, drinking water tanks, toilets. It has restored the sewage system and implemented small vocational training projects that have led to some activities such as baking, making tin utensils, and fish farming.
In recent years, the ‘free the prisoners’ initiative, carried out together with inmates of Italian and European prisons visited by the Community, has also been very important.
Indeed, in Mozambique, you can pay a bail and release prisoners who have served half their sentence and meet the requirements for conditional release on payment of a bail. These are usually inmates without family members, who cannot afford to pay the legal fees to be released, and are forced to live in prison for another few years. The Community in the city of Beira recently, with the financial help of prisoners in Germany and other friends, has started a process to release 50 prisoners, mostly elderly people coming from the city's outskirts.
