Mozambique Elections: PGR promises to investigate Amgoche shootings

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Mozambique Elections: PGR promises to investigate Amgoche shootings

8:46 CAT | 22 Nov 2023

File photo: O País

The Mozambican Attorney-General’s Office (PGR) has promised to open an investigation into the police shooting of demonstrators last week, in the town of Angoche, in the northern province of Nampula.

The demonstration, on 16 November, was one of many organized across the country by the main opposition party, Renamo, in protest against what it regards as the fraudulent results of the municipal elections.

The clash reportedly started when the demonstrators marched through the streets of Angoche, covering a coffin draped with a flag of the ruling Frelimo Party. The police dispersed the demonstrators, seized the coffin, and took it to the Angoche District Police Command.

The demonstrators went to the command to ask the police to return their coffin. It is not yet clear exactly what happened next, but the upshot is that several people suffered gunshot wounds.

The police used tear gas and live ammunition to disperse the crowd, and some of the violence was caught on amateur videos later shown by the independent television station STV.

The number of people shot is in dispute. Interior Minister Pascoal Ronda said that two people had been injured, one of whom later died. But other sources, cited by STV, put the number of people injured at eight.

READ: Mozambique Elections: Renamo member, shot by the police in Angoche, dies in hospital

CIP Mozambique Elections: Police shoot eight Renamo demonstrators in Angoche

Mozambique Elections: Police says only ‘shot at’ four in Angoche – Ikweli

The Provincial Chief Attorney in Nampula, Ribeiro Cuna, said that police intervention in events such as demonstrations “should give primacy to persuasion”.

The means used by the police should always be proportional to the threat faced. So the PGR investigation, Cuna added, would seek to find whether the police response in Angoche had been proportional to the threat posed by the demonstrators.

He said that currently over ten criminal proceedings are under way, arising from the Renamo demonstrations in the province. He gave no details but it is known that two of the cases that have come to court were in the port of Nacala. In one of the trials the accused were found guilty, and in the other they were acquitted.

Asked about the members of the District Elections Commissions who supposedly admitted to receiving 500,000 meticais (about 7,800 US dollars) as payment for committing fraud, Cuna preferred not to comment.

Source: AIM