Lilongwe, Malawi … What greater nightmare can you have than to be a prison official and have someone run to tell you the prison stores are out of food, none is on the way, and you have 2,000 prisoners who depend on you to feed them? Perhaps a greater nightmare is not the one for the officials themselves, but the dreaded fear that grips the inmates when they realize the food supplies are running out.
In a frontpage story in the DAILY TIMES newspaper on 10 June 2016 the newspaper reported prisoners in the Zomba prison expressing some degree of rebellion over the food shortage. The paper, established in 1895 revealed the institution has run out of funds to feed the prisoners, last paying its food suppliers in November 2015. The suppliers have had to suspend food shipments until the back bills are caught up.
The food shortage is also affecting other prisons, according to Josephine Chinele, the reporter who broke the story. According to her inmates in some of the prisons are eating only 1 meal a day.
The Malawi Project, World Emergency Relief, and Universal Aid in Canada are sending food to a warehouse in southern Malawi for assistance to be given to the prison system. Not only will food be given, but one of the innovative walk behind tractors will soon be donated to the largest prison in the country to assist them to raise food themselves.