Political prisoner Bandarenka had leg surgery
Political prisoner Zmitser Bandarenka has
had his second surgery since the beginning of his prison term.
Coordinator of the civic campaign European Belarus, political prisoner Zmitser Bandarenka has had a surgery on his
leg performed in the Mahiliou reformatory. This is his second surgery since he
was imprisoned. Last July he underwent a spinal surgery when spinal disc
herniations were removed. Now an abscess caused by the gout was removed.
Zmitser told his wife about the surgery himself, on the phone: "He told me
about the surgery, that after it he could hardly put his foot in the shoe to
walk. The foot was swollen. He says that the pain has never been that
strong," Volha Bandarenka told RFE/RL.
Volha Bandarenka asked her husband if he knew anything
about Aliaksandar Lukashenka’s new promises to exonerate the political
prisoners who had written appeals for pardon. He knew but didn’t expect to be
exonerated in the near future.
Zmitser Bandarenka has been in the medical department of the reformatory for
more than one and a half months. Apart from the joint disease, problems with
his spine are coming back. Four new disc herniations formed instead of the
removed herniations. The results of the recent tomographic examination of
Zmitser were sent to Minsk. According to Volha Bandarenka, they suggested him
moving to the republican prison hospital in Minsk, but he refused: "They
suggested the hospital in Minsk for consultations, but he says that he won’t
survive the trip – they will never give him a specialized vehicle…"
