Libya is a major departure point in North Africa for migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, mainly from other parts of Africa.

Special forces have freed 61 prisoners from a Taliban-controlled jail in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, an official said Friday.

The pardon included 274 inmates, 115 of them were expatriates, Oman News Agency reported.

The French government pointed to possible security failings on Monday after a notorious gangster used a helicopter to stage his second brazen jailbreak of a crime career inspired by films such as ‘Scarface’.

US President Donald Trump welcomed three former US prisoners who landed at a military base near Washington on Thursday after being released by North Korea, thanking leader Kim Jong Un and sounding upbeat on a planned summit between the two.

Fourteen officials from Saddam Hussein's regime are still in Iraq's prisons, 15 years after the late dictator was deposed by a US-led invasion in 2003, according to an AFP survey.

Egyptian prison authorities executed on Tuesday five inmates who had been sentenced to death, four of them over a bombing that killed military cadets, security officials said.

Authorities in Ivory Coast speculated Monday that a guard may have allowed nearly 100 inmates to escape a prison in the west African country, the latest in a string of jail breaks.

Almost 100 inmates escaped from a prison in the Ivory Coast on Sunday, the latest in a string of jail breaks in the west African country, officials said.

Dozens of prisoners escaped from a jail in Democratic Republic of Congo early Friday, less than 48 hours after rebels attacked Kinshasa's main prison, freeing their leader and 50 others.

New Hamas leader Ismail Haniya pledged support for hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners on Monday in his first comments since being elected as head of the movement that runs the Gaza Strip.

A prominent Bahraini activist jailed for life for his role in anti-government protests has been on hunger strike for two weeks to protest the treatment of prisoners, campaigners said Thursday.