Buenos Aires:
Two men serving time for armed robbery escaped from a jail in the southern Argentine province of Neuquen where a personnel shortage prompted administrators to dress up a doll as a guard and put it in a watchtower.
The convicts escaped last Saturday night from UP 12 prison after climbing one of its barbed-wire-clad walls under the impassive gaze of "Wilson", a doll holding down the post of a watchman, guards told Rio Negro newspaper.
The guards, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that for months the jail's 40 spy cameras have been out of order, and that the correctional facility has only two guards to man the 15 watchtowers.
"So we have 'Wilson' in a watchtower like in the movie `Cast Away' (starring Tom Hanks): we made a doll with a ball and a cap so that the inmates see the shadow and think they're under surveillance," the guard told the newspaper.
The guards said that "months ago" the Neuquen authorities were warned about the lack of resources and personnel.
Here they always skimp as much as possible, one of the guards told the newspaper, but "when it's time for sanctions they'll want to punish the prison guard on duty at the time, who on Saturday was in charge of cellblocks 7 and 8. The guy can't split himself in two and be in both cellblocks at the same time", he said.