54 inmates on the run after Iran prison break
Seventy-four prisoners escaped from a prison in the Kurdistan province of Iran amid fears that the country's overcrowded prisons will suffer under the coronavirus.
More than 50 inmates are on the run in Iran following a prison break Sunday in which four guards were arrested, Iran’s state news agency said.
"Some prison guards were summoned and four of them were arrested and others released on bail," Mojtaba Shirouzbozorgi, a judicial official in Kurdistan province, told state-run IRNA.
Of the 74 inmates who escaped the prison in the city of Saqqez on Friday, 20 have either turned themselves in or have been captured. The agency said the 54 escapees were nonviolent offenders serving one-year sentences.
Authorities have also recently tamped down prison riots in Hamedan, Lorestan and Tabriz provinces amid widespread pressure for the prisons to protect its inmates from the outbreak.
