Scores of prisoners escape Indonesian jail amid allegations of overcrowding, discrimination

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Indonesian authorities are searching for scores of inmates who have escaped from an overcrowded prison on Sumatra island. — Handout via ReutersJAKARTA, May 5 — About 200 prisoners in Indonesia broke out of an overcrowded jail on Sumatra island today, tearing down a gate near a mosque in the prison complex after being allowed out of their cells to pray, officials said. “So far 209 inmates have been recaptured or surrendered willingly, many have returned to their cells,” local police spokesman Guntur Aryo Tejo told AFP, adding that the authorities did not have the exact number of inmates still on the loose. When that failed, they fled through a side entrance and broke through a wire fence of the jail, which was guarded by only a handful of officers, Indonesia's director- general of prisons I Wayan Dusak told Agence France-Presse.
Hundreds of prisoners escape from an overcrowded jail in Pekanbaru, Indonesia.