Fourth wing of Egypt’s Scorpion Prison to become quarantine centre for infected prisoners

Egypt is transforming the fourth wing of its infamous Scorpion Prison into a quarantine centre for prisoners with suspected coronavirus.

According to research carried out by the rights organisation We Record the prison administration tried to keep the quarantine centre a secret.

#WeRecord's OSINT team documents transforming the 4th wing in building H4 in Scorpion to a quarantine wing to host all #coronavirus infected prisoners within the #Tora_Prison complex.

The prison admin kept the transformation of the wing to a quarantine area under wraps. pic.twitter.com/qMBKiuM2Oz

— We Record (@WeRecordEN) June 15, 2020

However, there is concern over the fact that this wing is not medically equipped to receive prisoners suffering from the virus.

The cells on this wing are particularly unhygienic and dirty and there is no sunlight.

At the beginning of this week Nasser Saad Abdelal, 48, became the third prisoner to die of suspected coronavirus in detention in Tora Prison where the virus has spread to two out of four cell blocks.

Detainees at Al-Mahalla Police Station in Gharbia Hassan Ziada, 54, and Moawad Suliman, 65, also died from suspected coronavirus.

At the time of Hassan’s death, the Committee for Justice estimated there to be 19 other suspected cases in the same police station.

Egypt: Third detainee dies of suspected coronavirus

We Record has documented 100 suspected cases in the 10th Ramadan Police Station and in four detention cells in Al-Qanater men’s prison.

The Egyptian regime has consistently denied medical care to detainees as part of its systematic torture used against political prisoners. So far, detainees suffering from suspected coronavirus have not been isolated or widely tested.

Since the start of the pandemic in Egypt, rights groups and governments across the world have called on the government to release political prisoners to ease overcrowding and help stop the spread of the virus.

To date, Egypt has recorded 46,289 coronavirus infections including 1,672 deaths, according to Worldometers. Officials however believe the true number of those affected is seven times higher.