Warders injured in mass prison attack

Despite tightened security at prisons across the Western Cape, 10 warders were brutally attacked yesterday by inmates at Drakenstein prison, near Paarl.

The Correctional Services officers were assaulted by knife-wielding prisoners believed to be members of the 26s, 27s and 28s gangs.

Nine warders sustained injuries. Five who were stabbed in their necks, heads and chests were taken to hospital but discharged later.

Provincial Correctional Services commissioner Delekile Klaas said: "This was an organised attack to kill our guards."

He said the assault could have been a ritual in which prisoners are required to carry out an attack to earn a promotion in the ranks of a gang.

It was the second attack in a prison in the region this month. Two weeks ago, Lubabalo Mzamo allegedly attacked a warder with a sock containing a padlock at Brandvlei prison, in Worcester. He died in hospital yesterday from head injuries sustained when warders "tried to restrain him".

Klaas said that because of the attack in Worcester he had warned the heads of all 42 correctional facilities in the province to strengthen their security procedures.

He said this was why the Drakenstein guards had been able to disarm their attackers yesterday.

"We shared new strategies that gangs use and shared new training methods and techniques. Gang members usually have tattoos but some of them don't have a thing; they are just neat young fellows. You must look for signs."

Yesterday's attack was at about 8am, when guards were making a routine search for drugs, dagga and weapons in a cell.

"[It] shocked us. It is the first time so many officers have been attacked at once. Some of the knives we found were real knives but others were handmade."

He said the prisoners were being kept in isolation until the investigation was complete.

Sasha Gear, programme director of Just Detention International, which is due to release a report on prison conditions in South Africa next week, said stabbing guards was known to be a ritual practised by many gangs.

"Sometimes the dynamics of the prison gangs demand the stabbing of warders."

She said inmates used anything - toothbrushes, pens, pencils and broken glass - as weapons.

Western Cape Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union chairman Fransisco Fields said the union was investigating.