ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar
Fourteen people were killed and 28 wounded Monday in Madagascar after gendarmes opened fire on angry residents over a murky kidnapping case, local and medical sources told AFP.
"The gendarmes (...)
fired on the crowd," said Jean Brunelle Razafintsiandraofa, MP for the
eastern district of Ikongo, where the incident took place.
"Nine people died on the
spot," said Tango Oscar Toky, chief physician at the local hospital. And
out of 33 injured people received in the morning, five died in hospital, he
added.
At around 08:00 GMT, gunfire
rang out in Ikongo. Since last week, the small town is under shock: a child, an
albino, disappeared and the authorities suspect a kidnapping.
On the large Indian Ocean Island,
people with albinism are regularly the target of violence. More than a dozen
abductions, attacks, and murders have been reported in the past two years,
according to the United Nations.
Four suspects have been
arrested by the gendarmes. But the residents are determined to take justice
into their own hands.
In the morning, they went to
the gendarmerie barracks and demanded that the four suspects be handed over,
according to Razafintsiandraofa.
According to a gendarmerie
source, at least 500 people showed up, some with "white weapons" and
"machetes.
"There were negotiations,
the villagers insisted," said the source. The gendarmes then decided to
throw smoke bombs to disperse the crowd and fired a few shots in the air.
But the residents continued to
try to force their way into the barracks. "We had no choice but to defend
ourselves..." said the same source.
The Malagasy police are
regularly singled out by civil society for human rights violations, which are
rarely prosecuted. - AFP
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