Twenty-six prisoners escaped from Jib Jenin prison in Lebanon’s western Bekaa region at dawn on Monday, local media reported. Most of them had been jailed on drug- and weapons-trafficking charges. They escaped through a ventilation opening. Security forces apprehended eight of the escapees later in the day – one in the morning and seven more in the afternoon.
Lebanon’s prisons have witnessed several escapes over the past few months as the value of the national currency, and thus the salaries of law enforcement officers, have plummeted in an economic crisis that has plunged 80% of the population below the poverty line. Last month, 18 prisoners escaped from Amioun prison in Koura. Nineteen others escaped in October from Fakhreddine Barracks near UNESCO headquarters in Beirut. Another 19 escaped later in the same month from a prison in Jounieh in the Keserwan region. In August, 30 inmates escaped from the Adlieh detention center in Beirut. Some of the escapees were later apprehended.