Niger: the cost of living

Two prisoners attest to the conditions in overpopulated prisons. They were released in 2020.

T. was at the Niamey prison and M. at the Kollo prison, 30 kilometres south of the capital. Until 2020, both were incarcerated in the less populated so-called “VIP” sections. There, they could sleep laying stretched out on a mat, and occasionally a mattress. Such places came at a price: between 10,000 and 60,000 CFA francs per month (15 to 90 euros). At the Niamey prison, about 50 people out of the more than 1,500 there live in these sections. This money allows, in part, for other inmates to be paid regularly, especially to clean the premises and cook. These are the stories of T. and M.

— These accounts stem from the work of Carole Berrih, a student completing her PhD in public law at the Grenoble-Alpes University. She studies the role of inmates in the maintenance of order in Nigerien prisons. As part of her research, she meets with prisoners in various penitentiaries in Niger.

Some have nothing, no visitors and no resources. They can spend years like that, abandoned.

T. was incarcerated at the Niamey prison, in the "Pretoria" section.

The Niamey prison is meant to hold 450 people. During my incarceration, there were 1,512 of us. ¹ It varies. In any case, it exceeds 1,500. Occupancy is very problematic. There are multiple sections. There’s a cell where they put everyone, petty thieves and others. In this room, you can’t imagine… There’s so little space that there are even people in the hallway. People are packed in like sardines and sleep head-to-toe to maximise space. You can only sleep on your side. Everyone lies on their side and avoids this cell. But bribery requires money. For those who can’t afford it, there’s no other option.

The food and toilets are disgusting. The food that they serve isn’t enough and it’s awful, made with millet and sorghum (editor’s note: grains). We’d cook porridge and then wait for it to dry so that we could make balls the size of eggs. Food only gets distributed once a day. So that’s how the pressure and abuse happen. It’s difficult to queue without any shoving. There’s often violence, hitting people to get them back in line. If you’re weak, at the back of the queue and don’t want to be pushed, you won’t get anything.

The amount isn’t enough for 1,500 prisoners. Once the food is finished, you won’t be able to eat.

The next day, it’ll be the same story. Some have nothing, no visits and no resources. They can spend years like that, abandoned. There are people who go 24 hours, even 48 hours without eating.

The civilian prison in Niamey had 1,513 prisoners on 31 December 2020, with 1,233 on remand. ↩

They cram you in. I counted at least four people who died of heat in April.

M. was detained at the Kollo prison, in the “civil servant” section.

I’ve seen people stripped of their belongings from their first day in prison. It’s a whole new world. You don’t know how it works. They say it’s “survival of the fittest”, so you surrender. If you don’t want to be in the same cell as

everyone else, there are rooms that can hold 10 to 15 people. In others, you can sometimes find 60 people crammed together. In April, it started to get hot. I counted at least four people who died because of it. They put you together, they cram you in. For those who can’t sleep outside in the yard, if you can’t handle it, you’re doomed to die.

When people get sick, it’s a major problem. The doctors don’t have equipment. They examine you and say “it’s such-and-such an illness”, but there’s no proper equipment. People die from minor things. There have been cases where people were told they had malaria, and then they were dead the next day.

There’s an abdication of responsibility from the State. When officials visit, they have to make it look like everything is fine. Even when partner organisations want to discuss the living conditions, people are selected and told what to say. Some realities will never be known.

The food they serve in prison is liquid mush. Some people only eat that, once a day, around 11:00 am. But it’s not edible. Our section made its own arrangements. The administration had given us the possibility to hire youth. We found young inmates from another section of the prison and would all chip in for the monthly payment. These youth would maintain the bathrooms and prepare the food. When I left, everyone was paying 60,000 CFA francs a month (around 90 euros). This was our arrangement for food. Otherwise, it’s impossible to have family bring food from Niamey to Kollo every day.

Translated by Antonita Pratcher and Tanya Solari