MAPUTO, Mozambique
The Mozambican Order of Doctors claims that, during the strikes and protests called last week by the independent presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane to protest against “electoral fraud”, in most cases the police shot in order to kill the protesters.
According to Gilberto Manhiça,
the head of the Order of Doctors, speaking on Tuesday to reporters in Maputo,
during the demonstrations, 10 people died and 63 others were injured as a
result of gunshots.
“In most of the shootings,
especially those that resulted in death, the intention of the police was to
shoot to kill. The figures indicate a significant increase in the number of
victims of firearms injuries admitted to the health units”, he said.
For his turn, Napoleão Viola,
head of the Mozambican Medical Association (AMM), the initial medical
assessment points out that “there was a clear intention to take the lives of
those citizens.”
“Looking at the places on the
body where the injuries were inflicted, you can clearly get an idea of what the
intention was, whether it was to immobilize or to take the life of the citizen
and, unfortunately, in most of the 10 cases of death, there was most probably a
clear intention to take the life of these citizens”, he said.
Viola believes that the true
number of victims injured by gunshots is even higher.
He also called on the police
to be more conscious in their actions, especially during demonstrations, and to
take into account that ‘the greatest value is human life’.
“For the highest values of
humanism, empathy and human dignity, we call on the Police to fulfill its
republican duty to guarantee security, with a particular focus on the
demonstrators, because human life comes first”, he said.
“Let the demonstrators use
non-violent means to express their dissatisfaction”, he added.
The doctors also took the
opportunity to condemn the murders of Mondlane’s lawyer, Elvino Dias, and of
Paulo Guambe, an election agent for the opposition party Podemos.
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