Teenager killed by police in Dondo, Mozambique

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Teenager killed by police in Dondo, Mozambique

12:01 CAT | 25 Jul 2017

Folha de Maputo

A 14-year-old teenager was killed and a 23-year-old man was shot in the arm during a police shoot-out Dondo, Sofala province, on Monday morning.

The incident occurred in a market in the Mafarinha neighborhood, when a group of tricycle taxi drivers and members of the public tried to lynch two suspected thieves. The police team dispatched to calm the mood, instead of dispersing the crowd by firing into the air or using rubber bullets, fired real bullets and hit the two men.

The dead boy was in the market buying cassava for his father’s breakfast and was shot with the tubers in his hand, about to return home. Realizing that the police had unholstered their weapons, with shots being fired and the crowd stampeding, the child tried to drag himself to safety, but died without succeeding.

Even this situation did not deter the police from claiming a second victim, who was injured in his left arm, and at the time of going to press was receiving medical care in a local health unit.

Sofala police have not so far made any comment on the incident but have promised to do so in due course.

This was not the first instance of murder committed by police in Sofala. On January 11 of this year, a 10-year-old child was shot and killed by a member of the corporation during an operation purportedly aimed at recovering stolen goods in the Munhava neighbourhood of Beira city.

The policeman who fired the shot, a member of the 11th Squad whose identity has not been revealed, took flight, leaving the child and its family to their fate.

On September 23, 2016, an agent assigned to the 3rd Squad took the life of three-year-old Chocolate Armando in Beira’s Matacuane neighbourhood. Instead of providing assistance, he too fled, but was soon arrested.

In February 2016, another police officer shot dead a motorcycle taxi driver outside an eatery in the area, on the assumption that he had taken pictures of two police officers arguing over a bill for alcohol they had consumed will in uniform and armed.

Source: A Verdade