At least 47 people shot at political protests in Mozambique last week – NGO

MAPUTO, Mozambique

The electoral platform Decide, a Mozambican Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), said on Tuesday that at least 47 people were shot during demonstrations to contest the elections in Mozambique last week.

‘Around 47 cases of police shootings were also recorded, of which 46 were civilians and one a policeman in the provinces of Maputo, Manica, Tete, Cabo Delgado, Nampula, Zambézia and Niassa,’ according to a statement updating data on the demonstrations, published on the electoral platform’s Facebook page.

According to the NGO, between the 21st and 27th, the period during which the protests took place, at least 11 people died, including five in Nampula, in the north of Mozambique, three in Manica, in the centre, and another three in Maputo, in the south of the country.

The electoral platform Decide also counted 464 cases of illegal detentions during the demonstrations out of 1,105 requests for intervention in different cases received through the complaint line provided by the organisation.

‘Most [of the arrests] were reported to the Mozambican Bar Association, which immediately released just over 250 people accounted for so far in almost all of the country’s provinces,’ says the platform.

Since Monday, demonstrations have been taking place all over the country, most of them violent, in protest at the results of the 9 October elections. This follows the call for stoppages by presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, who does not accept the results, which give victory to Daniel Chapo, supported by the ruling Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo).

In addition to Mondlane, the president of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo, currently the largest opposition party), Ossufo Momade, one of the four presidential candidates, said that he does not recognise the election results announced by the CNE and called for the vote to be annulled.

Presidential candidate Lutero Simango, supported by the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), also rejected the results, considering that they were ‘forged in the secretariat’, and promised ‘political and legal action’ to restore the ‘will of the people’.

The Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), a Mozambican non-governmental organisation that monitors electoral processes, estimates that ten people died, dozens were injured, and around 500 were arrested in the context of the protests and clashes during the strike and demonstrations on Thursday and Friday.