Mozambique: Protests Continued With One Dead and Four Injured

Protests continued with one dead and a dozen injured in Maputo Maxaquene neighbourhood in Maputo city was the epicentre of the demonstrations that extended into the night Monday (21 October) with barricades on the main roads and the burning of tyres.

At least one young man was shot dead by the police in the Maputo city neighbourhood of Urbanização. After shooting him, the police took his body and deposited it in Mavalane General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The youth, named Jacinto Napute, was shot when he left his house and was walking to the street. His relatives say he was not on the demonstrations, and had been at home all day.

Officially, his death has not yet been confirmed.

There are also at least a dozen people injured, some seriously, including journalists and cameramen injured when police fired teargas directly into a group of journalists interviewed Venancio Mondlane Monday morning in Praca da OMM, Maputo. Government denies that journalists were targeted, but a video from an upper floor of a nearby building shows that journalists hit by at least five tear gas grenades.

Mondlane had called a stay-away and march in response to the assassinations Friday night of the election agent of the Podemos party, Paulo Guambe, and Elvino Dias, lawyer and advisor to independent presidential candidate Mondlane and Podemos. Dias was known to be working on the appeals against electoral fraud that Podemos intended to submit to the Constitutional Council. Another national general strike has been called for Mondlane Thursday and Friday, 24 and 25 October.

He said the general strike would be directed against the kidnappings that have been plaguing the country’s cities since 2011, affecting mostly business people and members of their families, particularly those of Asian origin. It is widely assumed that police are involved in the kidnappings. Third person in car survived. Eye-witnesses say that the car was intercepted on Av Joaquim Chissano by two Mazda-BT vehicles.

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Two armed individuals jumped out and sprayed front seat passengers Dias and Guambe with bullets. About 25 shots hit the victims. But there was a third person in the back seat, Adacia Macuacua, who was shot in the leg but survived. Yesterday morning, the director of the Maputo Central Hospital first aid unit, Dino Lopes, told a press conference that she survived and was recover and was expected to leave hospital later this week.

Four injured and 75 detained in Tete

Police detained 75 people in various parts of Tete province, accused of promoting illegal demonstrations. Four people were injured in Tete and Moatize cities, after they were hit by tear gas grenades. Those accused were detained when they were hurling stones and home-made bombs against the police. According to the police spokesperson in Tete, Feliciano da Camara, some of the detainees were caught in the possession of petrol and tyres, which would have been used to barricade roads.

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