Zimbabwe has begun releasing about 3,000 prisoners under a presidential amnesty aimed at easing congestion to reduce the threat of Covid-19 in the country’s overcrowded jails, AP reports.

About 400 prisoners were released from Chikurubi prison and other jails in the capital, Harare, with more coming from other prisons countrywide. Zimbabwe’s prisons have a capacity of 17,000 prisoners but held about 22,000 before the amnesty declared by President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

The amnesty “will go a long way” to reduce expenditure and the threat of the spread of the coronavirus in prisons, said Alvord Gapare, the commander for prisons in Harare. He said prisons in the capital had recorded 173 confirmed infections and one death.