Mozambique: Six students from Nautical School arrested after demonstration – O País

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Mozambique: Six students from Nautical School arrested after demonstration – O País

4:16 CAT | 05 Oct 2023

Photo: O País

Mozambican police have detained six of the approximately 50 students from the Escola Náutica who demonstrated in Maputo on Monday over conditions at the school residence.

Since then, the school management has not yet been available to comment on the case, and the police have not made public the reason for the arrests.

The six students were arrested as they demonstrated over conditions at the Higher School of Nautical Sciences outside the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

Relations with the police had already soured, and the students were driven away from the ministry only to continue their demonstration along Avenida 10 de Novembro as far as the educational institution.

“After returning from the demonstration, we had a graduation ceremony, the director asked to talk to us, she was accompanied by police officers,” one anonymous student explained. “At the time, she guaranteed that the meeting with the Ministry of Transport and Communications would take place at 4:00 p.m. on Monday, which is when she chose six students at random ostensibly to talk to the police to explain what was happening. Shortly after our graduation, we noticed that there was already a police vehicle picking up our classmates. We didn’t even suspect that they were being detained, but later, someone from the [school’s] management appeared to ask for bowls and clothes for our classmates to sleep in at the police station.”

One of the students’ relatives spoke to the newspaper ‘O País’, expressing outrage at the situation.

“Our son is currently detained, we don’t know what is happening,” he said. “I was working when, on Tuesday afternoon, I received information that my nephew was in the hands of the police after the demonstration he held with his colleagues. I went to the school to talk to the management but we didn’t hear anything concrete.”

No one knows why, but six students were taken into the cells at the central prison. We contacted the director of the college and the police to discuss the matter, but without success.

Source: O País