The Attorney General of Ethiopia and Benishangul Gumz region have decided to drop charges and pardon 2,558 prisoners to avoid crowd and reduce the number of causalities in case coronavirus outbreaks in prisons.
This is indicated by Federal Attorney General, which stated on its social media page that it is set to release additional 1,558 prisoners. The latest decision will increase the total number of prisoners Ethiopia pardoned after the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic to about 5,600. In a related development, Benishangul Gumz Region of Ethiopia has also announced yesterday that it has decided to pardon and release about 1,000 prisoners from three prisons. The decision is made to avoid overcrowding in prisons and avoid vulnerability of prisoners to COVID-19 pandemic.
So far Ethiopia has a total of 35 confirmed coronavirus cases of which two foreign nationals have returned back to their country after getting treatment while two Ethiopians have also recovered from the pandemic and left health centers. No death by COVID-19 is reported in Ethiopia so far.
The country has ordered public servants to stay at home and work from home whenever possible and also banned meetings including religious gatherings. Most public transport providers in the country are also ordered to use half of their passenger carrying capacity to avoid crowding.
In Africa about 300 people have died by the pandemic while around 7,000 are infected so far. Globally over 1.1 million people are infected by the pandemic, while close to 59,000 are died by the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Italy leads the world losing about 14,700 lives followed by Spain, which lost 11,200 lives so far. The United Sates and France have also lost over 7,100 and 6,500 lives respectively. United Kingdom, Iran, and China’s Hubei province, where the pandemic orginates have also lost over 3,200 lives each while tens of thousands of their citizens are infected by the corovavirus.