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Rukhag 3: The Nuns of Drapchi Prisonmore overwhelming. During that period, an “old rukhag 3” prisoner walked briefly outside her block en route to aninterrogation session and glimpsed the motionless women of “new rukhag 3” standing in the sun with darkened faces.[see Image 26: Drapchi Prison, female political prisoner area, early 2000]On Sunday 7 June, the women were given a half-day to attend to their own needs. That afternoon would again be spent ina state of forced immobility in the sun. Choeying Kunsang explains what happened:“That Sunday, when they told us we could do our washing, I washed my hair after lunch. I heard a lot of shoutingcoming from outside [the rukhag]. When I went to look, I saw that [prison staff] were carrying two nuns. They putthem in a white car. I only saw two nuns being carried into the car. The nuns were all shouting, ‘Where are youtaking our people, you killed our people!’. [Prison staff] replied ‘Some of your people committed suicide in the storeroom. We have to take them to hospital, and we will have to try to revive them.’ The storeroom, however, is up [farfrom the gate], and the place where they were carrying them is down [near the gate]. The place where they werecarrying them is near the interrogation room. Perhaps they died during interrogation and beating, or perhaps theythhad taken them to another place and killed them. We don't know. But on the [Tibetan] 13 they took five nunsaway.” 137Lobsang Choezin’s estimate of the time of removal is similar: “The nuns were taken away after our lunch. Our lunch wasalways at 12 noon, so it must have been one or two o' clock.” 138Another ex-inmate of “new rukhag 3” explained, referring to the image of Drapchi Prison included in this report, that theambulance was parked in the same area where the women had been made to stand in the sun:th“This is also where we were kept standing in the sun [until 6 June]. This is where on the [Tibetan] 13 theambulance came to pick up the nuns who died, who were taken from the storeroom through the gate.” 139[see Image 26: Drapchi Prison, female political prisoner area, early 2000]Although the location of the interrogation room for Unit 3 has not been pinpointed, it is likely to be in the section of “newrukhag 3” that contains the solitary cells and working space for officials and staff, just inside the unit gate. The storeroomis at the opposite end of the courtyard. If the nuns were being removed from the storeroom to the area where the “white car”was parked, they would have been carried past the probable location of the interrogation room. It would have beenunderstandable for an onlooker who had not actually seen the nuns carried all the way from the storeroom to presume theyhad been brought from the interrogation room, rather than from a point deeper into the courtyard, like the storeroom.The explanation of prison officials to one of the prisoners - that the nuns who were being carried to the white car appearedto have attempted suicide and that an attempt would be made to revive them - may suggest something other than an effortto cover up freshly committed killings. The deaths, as reported, happened during a period when the nuns were briefly allowedto deal with their personal needs, not during interrogation, beating, or military drill. That respite followed four days ofsustained abuse that had begun when the nuns refused to sing and they had declared themselves “not afraid to die”. ThatththSunday was the 13 day of the Tibetan 4 month, Saga Dawa, the holiest month of the year, when the birth and enlightenmentof the Buddha are celebrated. Two days later would be the full moon, the year’s most sacred day, a time reserved for the mostsincere offerings. The nuns had every reason to believe they would be spending it standing immobile in the sun, trying notto let a newspaper slip from beneath their armpits and under constant threat of beatings.42