By Phillip Pasula

ZOMBA-(MaraviPost)-The Community of Saint Egidio in Malawi under the Roman Catholic Church on Saturday visited life imprisoned inmates at Zomba Maximum Prison to give them hope that all is not lost as they are being taken care of by God himself in a very special way.

Members of Saint Egidio gave the inmates gifts in form of sugar, bread, soap and Vaseline.

Coordinator for the Community of Saint Egidio in Zomba, Bruce Munthali, told Maravi Post that God through Jesus Christ in the New Testament discourages tit for tat, an eye for an eye.

“These people were initially sentenced to death on allegations that committed murder. It’s difficult to prove whether they indeed committed murder or not. But the Bible is clearly against the death penalty and so is the Community of Saint Egidio.

“We thank God that the death penalty was changed to life imprisonment and we believe that at one point, some of these inmates will be released to rejoin their families. We came here with a message of hope for them because almost all of them are now disconnected from their relatives. They are no longer visited here,” remarked Munthali.

A representative of the inmates, Steven Ching’ombe from Lilongwe, said it was so painful to be sentenced to death.

“When the court said we will be hanged, we felt a lot of pain even before being hanged. It is very painful to be sentenced to death when you never intended to commit murder. We are isolated here. We are kept in isolation and relatives stopped thinking about us.

“We thank the Community of Saint of Egidio for coming to cheer us and we urge them to continue doing this,” remarked Ching’ombe.

Zomba Maximum Prison Chaplain, Anderson Muyila, hailed the Community of Saint Egidio for the kind and religious gesture.

“These inmates face a lot of challenges as many of them were totally forgotten by their relatives and they are never visited. The coming of the Community of Saint Egidio brings among them a sense of human dignity and a deep feeling that they are still considered as Malawian citizens,” he said.

Zomba Maximum Prison has 25 inmates who are on life imprisonment out of 2,300 inmates.