Tunisian prison on fire, inmates escape

Jul 5, 2011
Tunisian prison on fire, inmates escape: Witnesses

TUNIS – AT LEAST one person died on Tuesday when fire broke out at a Tunisian prison and inmates escaped in an incident that highlights the country’s lawlessness six months after the president was ousted.

Witnesses said ambulances rushed to the prison in Gassrine, about 300km south-west of Tunis, to take dozens of injured people to the local hospital.

‘Hundreds of locals have gathered to learn the fate of the prisoners,’ a local resident named Majed told Reuters by telephone. ‘We see ambulances transporting the injured, they seems to be dead.’ A second witness confirmed the account. A medical source told Reuters that one person died.

There has been a spate of prison fires in Tunisia over the past few months. Often the fires are started deliberately by inmates who then, in the confusion, stage mass breakouts.

Tunisia electrified the Arab world in January when protests forced President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali to leave the country.

Tunisia’s revolution inspired uprisings in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world. — REUTERS …source