Deadly riots in Malema

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Deadly riots in Malema

12:04 CAT | 26 Oct 2017

Riots in Malema have ended in tragedy, following popular demands for the freeing of 40 individuals detained since last Saturday by police cells in the municipal village of Malema in connection with the beating of the Murralelo locality head, suspected of promoting ‘blood sucking’.

One person was killed and three others seriously injured on Sunday by police firing to disperse the crowd.

According to Saíde Amade, permanent district secretary in Malema, the functioning of public institutions and commerce in the village was closed between nine and eleven o’clock yesterday. Service resumed only after PRM agents dispersed a crowd of about 100 people who had arrived on foot from Murralelo, 35 kilometres away, to demand the release of the 40.

Murralelo locality head Joaquim Silva is in intensive care in Nampula, to where he was evacuated last Saturday afternoon after contracting serious injuries contracted at the hands of an angry mob at his official residence.

Saide Amade said that appeals by law-enforcement officials for the crowd to disperse and make their demands through the proper channels had proved fruitless. Shots to quell the turmoil accidentally hit two of the protesters, one of whom died, and the other being seriously injured was now undergoing treatment at Nampula Central Hospital.

The source said that questioning by the Malema public prosecutor would continue and those implicated would be prosecuted. ‘Blood sucker’ allegations were no more than an invention by those interested in disturbing order and tranquillity and delaying the economic recovery of the district and the country in general, the prosecutor said.

Following the violent attack, police made 54 arrests, but quickly released 14 for lack of evidence, according to the Malema permanent secretary.

Source: Wamphula Fax