Reports on Ogaden Jail: His wife got married another man after Ethiopia kept him 10 years behind bars

[Deeq A.]

JIGJIGA, Ogaden (Somaliland Informer) —Released from Jail Ogaden, Mohamed Kilas wanted to reunite his wife and children but he was told that his wife got married another man after she had been told that he died 10 years ago.

Kilas was among of several dozen of inmates released from one of Ethiopia’s torture chambers, better known as “Jail Ogaden” two weeks ago following a pardon by Ethiopia’s appointed head of the region Abdi Mohammed Omer (Abdi Iley).

Most of those political inmates were jailed by Abdi Iley after false confessions.

He is the only person who can be authorise access to the jail.

Relatives of Kilas said that his wife and children live in the United States and his medical condition was not even good before Ethiopia detained him for allegedly being ONLF sympathizer. He is a man with epilepsy.

20,000 inmates are believed to be held incommunicado throughout the Ogaden territory.

In Ogaden, ordinary prisoners and prisoners of conscience alike spent many long years in detention, awaiting a trial that never came; thus they were exposed to very low conditions of hygiene and nutrition.

According to Ahmed Yusuf Omar, who spent a year in this notorious Jail, hundreds of detainees have died because of diarrhea and other contaminations. The cells are at times flooded with evacuation waters, and this often causes repeated cholera outbreaks that eliminate many prisoners. Nevertheless, the survivors still face an unusually brutal attitude from the guards and are constantly beaten and hit with various instruments with catastrophic results for their integrity and health.

For all cases of imprisonment, after their incarceration and for several weeks, prisoners are placed in the horrendous cells known as “neef-diid”; these cells are airless and dark, and the prisoners are exposed to different types of torture in order to be forced to confess that they are ONLF members or sympathizers. Over the span of the last decades, many innocent civilians suffocated and died in those airless cells.

Ethiopia reported that it was released 1,500 prisoners from Jail Ogaden last month but most of said released are taken back to Jail Ogaden.