Five die in Kosovo prison fire, 17 injured – UN official

Five Kosovo prisoners died in a fire and 16 more were hospitalized for burns and smoke inhalation after rioting inmates protesting over general conditions set their mattresses ablaze, a senior United Nations official in the province said today.

One prison officer was also hospitalized for smoke inhalation suffered in an effort to help prisoners attempting to flee the burning building in Dubrava Prison last night, the Director of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) Department of Justice, Paul Coffey, told a news conference.

“Someone inside threw a burning mattress at the guards,” Mr. Coffey said of the fire in the prison’s block 2, which held 174 serious offenders, some of them for homicide. “Prisoners then set other mattresses on fire, which caused the fire to burn quickly beyond their control. The subsequent flames and smoke reached the 2nd floor.”

An international judge has been appointed to conduct an investigation, he added. The police commissioner has already secured the facility for this purpose and will work directly with the investigative judge. The Kosovo Penal Management Division (PMD) will not investigate itself. But the director inspected the prison last night and again this morning and instructed PMD officials to fully cooperate with the investigation.

Dubrava prison holds about 800 inmates in all.