Convicts airlifted to Sudan capital from crowded Darfur prison

The South Darfur Administrator of Prisons has transferred more than 100 convicts to the Sudanese capital of Khartoum to alleviate overcrowding in the prison of the state capital Nyala.

In a statement on Wednesday, a government official said that the prison administration transported 105 inmates to a prison in Khartoum using military aircraft.

He said the Nyala prison houses 900 inmates, but was only designed to accommodate 750 when it was built 50 years ago.

The official said most of those transferred are serving sentences of between 10 and 15 years for drug-related offenses, weapons and ammunition violations. Some of them are also facing the death sentence for murder, armed robbery, and kidnapping.