Mozambique: Police prevented further looting in Maputo on Thursday – president

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Mozambique: Police prevented further looting in Maputo on Thursday – president

7:16 CAT | 09 Nov 2024

Photo: Lusa

The Mozambican president said on Friday that the police action to contain the demonstrations that broke out in Maputo on Thursday had prevented other acts of looting in the city, such as what happened at the shopping centre of the South African chain Shoprite, which he visited.

“I came here to see this carnage. This is where the message of violence is reflected. The message can be distorted to the whole world, but this happened,” Filipe Nyusi told journalists after visiting the shopping centre of the South African supermarket group Shoprite, where two shops were vandalised and looted during Thursday’s violent demonstrations to contest the election results.

“If there hadn’t been police action to stop them when they went downtown, I think all their shops would be in this situation. But the police were able to manage it,” he added, recalling that many of these traders also take part in these marches and demonstrations, sometimes to “complain about other things”.

“We’re taking this opportunity to ask people not to do this, not to demonstrate violently. I think there’s plenty of room to talk (…). The risk is that this will become fashionable,” he said.

Before visiting the vandalised shops, where he spoke to some workers, trying to understand how it all happened on Thursday, the head of state visited protesters and police officers injured in the demonstrations, which resulted in three deaths and 66 injuries, according to Maputo Central Hospital.

Nyusi explained that his “great immediate concern” was to visit these “young people”, as well as the police officers, guaranteeing that he didn’t go to the hospital “to pass judgement”, just to “show solidarity”.

“We’re trying to encourage society, we have faith that this will end, without dramatising. People like to dramatise. People are not like this, not like this. Mozambicans are a people who have a star to guide them,” said Filipe Nyusi.

South African supermarket chain Shoprite has temporarily closed its shops in Maputo and “other high-risk areas” due to the post-election demonstrations, which on Thursday led to the looting and vandalisation of two shops in the capital.

Contacted by Lusa, the group, which has almost 30 commercial centres in Mozambique, explained that “concerns for the safety of employees and customers continue to be of the utmost importance”, that the “situation is being closely monitored” and that “the shops will reopen as soon as it is safe to do so”.

“We are concerned about the senseless acts of malicious damage that put other people’s livelihoods, lives and safety at risk,” a source from the supermarket chain told Lusa.

During Thursday’s protests, called by presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, two shops – telecoms (Vodacom) and furniture (Ok) – in the shopping centre that Shoprite owns in the centre of Maputo, were vandalised and looted by more than a hundred people, according to a security guard on site who told Lusa the same day.

In the middle of Avenida Acordos de Lusaka, in the city centre, the people broke down the security railing and smashed the windows, including children, taking televisions, mobile phones, printers and even fridges, with most of them seeking refuge in the city’s old Bullring next door, which was transformed into a housing development several years ago.

At the scene, as Lusa witnessed, a heavy police contingent tried to stop the looting and pursued the perpetrators, with several arrests being made, at the same time as shots were fired by the police and tear gas was launched, while they recovered some of the looted material from a floor littered with open, empty mobile phone cases.

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 Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo, the party in power since 1975) in the election for country’s president, with 70.67% of the vote, sparked popular protests, called by presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, who does not recognise the results, which still have to be validated and proclaimed by the Constitutional Council.

After street protests brought the country to a standstill, Mondlane once again called the public to a seven-day general strike from 31 October, with nationwide protests and a demonstration in Maputo on Thursday.

Source: Lusa