Published: September 21, 2026
KAKATA, Margibi County — A single correctional officer was on duty at Kakata Central Prison on Sunday afternoon when more than 50 inmates broke out
through the perimeter fence and scattered into the town, a day after prisoners at the same facility had already tried to escape and been brought under
control.
By Lennart Dodoo & Emmanuel Debgleh | News Analysis
Saturday’s attempted escape gave prison authorities an immediate warning. A mass breakout two years earlier had already exposed the danger of leaving one officer to hold back a prison population. Sunday’s breach raises the question of what authorities did with either warning.
The Liberian Investigator gathered that the prison has about 10 correctional officers for more than 200 inmates, but only one was on duty when the escape occurred around 3 p.m. Inmates fled through the left-wing section of the perimeter fence. Personnel at the neighboring Camp Edward S. Jones Military Barracks were alerted only after several had escaped.
Eyewitnesses told The Liberian Investigator that some escapees ran through nearby communities without shirts, trousers or footwear. Some carried sticks and machetes, witnesses said, and took clothing and shoes from people as they fled.
At least 10 escapees have been rearrested, and the Armed Forces of Liberia has joined the search, according to information The Liberian Investigator gathered. Joint security personnel have asked residents to report unfamiliar movement.
The Justice Ministry confirmed the jailbreak and said a recapture operation was underway. It said the Bureau of Corrections and Rehabilitation was checking prison records to establish the number and identities of those missing before releasing their names.
The ministry’s statement provided no escape count, time of the breach, explanation of how it happened or information about casualties. The reported figure of more than 50 therefore remains subject to the bureau’s reconciliation of its records.
A warning repeated
On Sept. 8, 2024, also a Sunday, Kakata Central Prison suffered a mass escape. The Justice Ministry eventually put the number at 47, following early media reports ranging from 50 to more than 100.
The ministry’s press director, Abigail T. Gbassagee, said inmates had refused to return to their cells after a cellphone search by the superintendent and overpowered a main entrance guarded by one officer.
Two years and 12 days later, the reported route was different – the perimeter fence – but the staffing vulnerability was strikingly familiar: one officer on duty.
After the 2024 escape, the ministry said it had deployed 13 additional correctional officers to Kakata. The current account of about 10 officers assigned to the entire prison demands an explanation. Were those reinforcements temporary? Were officers transferred, lost through attrition or simply absent from Sunday’s shift?
Staffing records and deployment orders should establish what happened. Until those records are produced, the public cannot know whether the promised reinforcement was sustained.
The prison was built for 60 inmates and now holds more than 200, a level of overcrowding judicial officers in Margibi have repeatedly raised. That puts its population at more than three times its intended capacity.
A staff of about 10 must cover shifts, rest days and absences while maintaining security across the compound. But the immediate question is: Why was only one officer on duty the afternoon after an attempted escape?
An inquiry without a public accounting
The Liberian Investigator reported in July that the findings of the investigation into the 2024 jailbreak had never been published. Without them, the public has no account of what investigators identified as the causes, what changes they recommended, or whether those changes were carried out.
The Liberian Investigator also reported that Superintendent Maj. Nelson Owah and Deputy Superintendent Willie Zunugo had reportedly been dismissed over Michael Brown’s release. It had not obtained dismissal letters, however, and the Justice Ministry had not confirmed nor denied the reported removals. No successor has been publicly named.
Those gaps leave two essential questions: What did the 2024 inquiry recommend, and who held command responsibility at Kakata Central Prison on Sept. 20, 2026?
The stakes for criminal prosecutions
The escapees include pretrial detainees and convicted prisoners accused or convicted of drug offenses, rape and armed robbery, according to information gathered by The Liberian Investigator. The bureau’s verified list will be needed to establish precisely who escaped and the status of each person’s case.
The 12 defendants charged over the 3,971 kilograms of cocaine seized July 21 at a property in the VOA Community, along the Roberts International Airport Highway in Lower Margibi, were remanded to Monrovia Central Prison in July. Authorities valued that seizure at US$317.68 million.
Kakata nevertheless has a separate, documented connection to a fugitive in the Roberts International Airport cocaine case.
Michael Browne, alias Rahim Bah, the alleged organizer of the RIA shipment, left Kakata Central Prison on Aug. 21, 2024, on a Statement of Guarantee signed by his fiancée and sister, after the prison superintendent wrote directly to the judge. He is now a fugitive charged in absentia.
Court files obtained by The Liberian Investigator contain no written ruling granting bail and give three conflicting accounts of the injury cited to justify moving him.
That release was separate from the mass escapes. It nevertheless raises questions about how custody decisions at Kakata were authorized and documented.
During the same period, burglars stole kush held as evidence at the 13th Judicial Circuit Court after the first jury trial in that matter, while the suspects were detained at Kakata Central Prison. No one has been arrested in connection with the theft.
These incidents do not establish a common operation or cause. They do show how failures to secure defendants and evidence can undermine criminal cases long before a court reaches a verdict.
A test for the new leadership
Concerns about prison security have also surfaced at Monrovia Central Prison.
Jackson K. Kolako, then its deputy superintendent for operations, said the manner of his Aug. 1 arrest could have provoked a riot and allowed a mass escape from a facility holding about 1,800 people, including drug-case detainees. He urged President Joseph N. Boakai to move those detainees to a secure facility abroad, preferably Morocco, pending trial.
The Justice Ministry said the minister ordered his stand-down based on information developed by the National Security Agency and described the allegations against him as unproven lines of inquiry. Questions about his own conduct remain unresolved.
His proposal does not establish that a transfer abroad is necessary or feasible. Sunday’s escape does, however, add urgency to the underlying issue: whether prisons have the personnel, physical security, and command arrangements needed to keep those in their custody secure.
Acting Justice Minister Betty M. Lamin-Blamo assumed office Sept. 10, just 10 days before the breakout. The failures now confronting her reach back well before her appointment.
Her immediate task is to account for the missing inmates and help recapture them. A credible response must also establish who was assigned to Sunday’s shift, who was in command, what happened during Saturday’s attempted escape and what security measures followed it.
The inmate register, duty roster, incident log and 2024 inquiry findings would provide a basis for those answers.
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