WASHINGTON, July 26 -- The U.S. federal government has ordered the death penalty to be reinstated after 16 years without an execution.

Attorney General William Barr has directed a proposed addendum to be adopted to the Federal Execution Protocol, clearing the way for the federal government to resume capital punishment after a nearly two-decade lapse, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Barr also directed Hugh Hurwitz, acting director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, to schedule the executions of five inmates on death row, who were convicted of murdering, and in some cases torturing and raping, children and the elderly.

Each of these inmates has exhausted their appellate and post-conviction remedies, and currently no legal impediments prevent their executions, which will take place at U.S. Penitentiary Terre Haute, in the state of Indiana, according to the Justice Department.

Additional executions will be scheduled at a later date.

In the United States, some 20 states have banned the death penalty, while others have not carried out executions for decades.

The last time that the federal government executed an inmate was in 2003.