Police have intensified the search for two prisoners who escaped last month from Kehancha prison in Migori county.
The two inmates ran into a maize plantation within the prison precincts and escaped.
They were among 23 convicts who were working on a vegetable farm.
One was serving a 10-year sentence for rape while the other one had been sentenced to three years for stealing.
An officer at the prison said that the prison wardens on guard could not pursue them for fear that the remaining 21 could also flee.
The officer in charge of Kehancha prison Charles Ngidi said they are still tracking down the inmates.
“We have launched an intense search of the prisoners to apprehend them,” Ngidi said.
Nyanza regions prisons officer Nicholas Emaase recently visited the prison and recommended disciplinary action against the guards and directed a thorough search of the prisoners.
Despite claims by junior officers that Ngidi was not at the station during the incident, Emaase confirmed the officer was there when the prisoners escaped.
Questions have also emerged why a prisoner serving 10 years was in such an open prison instead of a maximum prison as required. Ngidi said the inmate was serving his last four years of the sentence.
(edited by O. Owino)
