Mahiliou Activist Told About "Prison Bloodsuckers"

Dzmitry Liuntau was one of the March leaders of March 15, for which he was arrested for fifteen days and placed into the Mahiliou IVS temporary holding facility.

After the release, Dzmitry Liuntau made a statement about the unsanitary conditions in which prisoners of the IVS are forced to be kept. According to mspring.online, he, together with human rights defender Barys Buhel, sent a complaint to the prosecutor's office and the sanitary and epidemiological service.

– After the trial at 9 pm, I got to my ward on the third floor, – Liuntau says. – There I saw some traces of bloody color on the walls. I did not attach any importance to that. After supper, I bravely unwrapped the mattress, made my bedding and went to bed. However, at night I awoke, because something was stirring on the pillow. Raising my head, I saw black bugs, which started to scatter on the bed and the walls in different directions. After I crushed a couple of dozens, a very sharp unpleasant odor appeared in the cell, which was there until the morning, because at night the ventilation was turned off.

According to Liuntau, when he knocked down insects, bloodstains remained on the bed.

– They bit me. The skin in the places of bites was itching and, in order to reduce the itching, I washed myself in a wash-stand with soap at night. After shaking out the blanket and things, I climbed onto the second tier of the bed and slept without a mattress on the plywood. Periodically I had to crush those bugs, which quickly crept on the wall almost to the ceiling.

The next day Dzmitry Liuntau asked to change over to a ward to his friend. He claims that he did not spread his bed for the whole time in the IVS, he slept in his clothes. This allowed him to avoid a large number of insect bites. His neighbor in the ward was less lucky:

– The man who was with me in the new ward, undressed and slept on the bedclothes. After a while he began to complain of itching to me. He had red spots on his skin that it would have been difficult not to notice, but the duty officers did not pay attention to it and never asked about their origin.

The activist says that a woman came one day and insufflated the room with insecticide in ten minutes, but the insects did not disappear.

"In order to somehow protect myself from those unsanitary conditions, I washed my feet, arms, head, and armpits several times a day. I announced my intention to take a shower on every morning examination, and I managed to wash myself bodily twice. I washed all my personal belongings in the washstand and dried them on the battery, – Dzmitry Liuntau shared his impressions.

He expects that the IVS administration will improve the sanitary situation.