Mozambique Elections: At least 21 injured,14 detained in clashes on Thursday

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Mozambique Elections: At least 21 injured,14 detained in clashes on Thursday

6:10 CAT | 06 Dec 2024

Photo: AIM

At least 21 people were injured in clashes between protesters and police on Thursday during demonstrations to contest the results of the October elections, police authorities said, announcing that they had arrested 14 people.

The figures presented at a press conference by the spokesman for the Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM), Orlando Mudumane, indicate that at least 29 schools were raided and vandalised across the country and a district civil jail was raided and vandalised, with 11 inmates escaping.

Orlando Mudumane also said that two police stations had been invaded and burnt down by alleged demonstrators, in addition to the vandalisation of several commercial establishments, especially in Maputo city and Maputo province, Zambezia and Nampula.

According to the Mozambican police, the 14 people were arrested for ‘placing barricades on public roads to coerce, blackmail and extort motorists, carrying and using prohibited weapons to vandalise vehicles and institutions and breaking into commercial establishments and for financing subversive acts’.

At least 12 people died, and another 34 were shot in the new phase of demonstrations and stoppages challenging the election results that began on Wednesday, the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Plataforma Eleitoral Decide said today.

These cases are in addition to another 76 deaths and 240 shootings in 41 days – from 21 October to 1 December – of demonstrations to contest the election results, according to the previous report by the electoral monitoring platform, which also estimated ‘more than 3,000 arrests’.

Data from the “4×4” phase of the demonstrations in Mozambique.#MozambiqueElections #MozambiqueProtests #DecideEleicoes @CDD_Moz @CIPMoz pic.twitter.com/h7MjWRJNQR

— Plataforma_decide (@PDecide23) December 5, 2024

Presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane called for a new week-long phase of electoral protest, which began on Wednesday in ‘all the neighbourhoods’ of Mozambique. Traffic was stopped from 08:00 to 16:00.

The announcement by Mozambique’s National Electoral Commission (CNE) on 24 October of the results of the 9 October elections, in which it awarded victory to Daniel Chapo, supported by the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, the party in power since 1975) in the election for President of the Republic, with 70.67% of the votes, triggered popular protests, called by presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, which have degenerated into violent clashes with the police.

According to the CNE, Mondlane came second with 20.32%, but the latter does not recognise the results, which still have to be validated and proclaimed by the Constitutional Council.

Source: Lusa