BEIRUT —
More than 30 people fled a
Lebanon detention center at dawn on Sunday, security
forces said, after sawing their way through a window, according to a judicial
official.
اضافة اعلان
“At dawn ... 31
detainees managed to escape” from a detention center in the Adlieh district of
the capital Beirut, the Internal Security Forces said in a statement.
“Immediate orders
were given to arrest them and investigations are underway.”
The detainees
broke past a prison window using a saw smuggled into the facility, said a
judicial official close to an investigation into the incident.
“The escapees include
Lebanese, Syrians, and
Palestinians, among other foreigners,” he told AFP on
condition of anonymity.
On Sunday morning,
an AFP correspondent saw security forces and army personnel deployed in the
Beirut neighborhood housing the jail.
The Adlieh detention
center was formerly controlled by Lebanon’s General Security agency but is now
managed by the country’s prison authority.
It was notorious
for abuses committed against detained Syrian refugees and foreign migrant
domestic workers, according to rights groups, including Human Rights Watch.
Bassam Al-Kantar
of Lebanon’s National Human Rights Commission said the facility was among the
country’s worst, suffering from overcrowding, foul sewage smells, and lack of
ventilation and sunlight.
“Detainees are malnourished
... and are not allowed to receive food from their families,” he said.
“Healthcare is
also non-existent, with a large number of detainees suffering from skin
diseases,” mainly due to lack of hygiene measures in the facility, he added.
The prison break
came as Lebanon grapples with an unprecedented economic crisis that has seen
the value of the Lebanese pound lose more than 90 percent of its value against
the dollar on the black market.
Inflation has
skyrocketed and public sector salaries have plummeted to record lows, forcing
many soldiers and other members of the security forces to quit in order to try
to eke out an alternative living.
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