The death toll inflicted by Mozambique’s post-election unrest has climbed to 261, according to a local monitoring group, with most of the fatalities caused by police gunfire.
While the situation on Friday had calmed in the capital Maputo, violence flared elsewhere including in the northern port city of Nacala, said Wilker Dias, director at Decide Platform which has been tracking the violence in the southeast African nation.
Mozambique has been rocked by waves of demonstrations since electoral authorities in late October declared that the party which has been in power since 1975 had won by a landslide, an outcome the opposition rejected as fraudulent.
Police have fired on the crowds with teargas and live ammunition, and roughly half of the fatalities have occurred since violence intensified after the Constitutional Council on Monday confirmed the ruling party’s victory.
UN Secretary General António Guterres urged Mozambique’s political leaders to defuse tensions through meaningful dialogue, refrain from violence, and redouble efforts to seek a peaceful resolution to the crisis.
By Friday, Maputo was slowly returning to normal, the state broadcaster reported.
The nation’s Eurobond due 2031 fell 0.8% to 80.7 cents on the dollar, making it the second-worst performing in a Bloomberg index of hard currency sovereign bonds from emerging and frontier nations. That’s also their lowest level in more than a year.
The turmoil has hit the economy hard. Businesses have been looted and torched, and the violence has impacted operations at mines, a natural gas exporter and the region’s biggest aluminum smelter.
A ruby mine in northern Mozambique that accounts for about half the world’s supply halted operations on Dec. 24 after about 200 people tried to invade. Two died of gunshot wounds in a clash with security forces protecting the facility, majority owner Gemfields Group Ltd. said on Friday. The company aims to return to normal operations by year-end.
While the levels of unrest witnessed earlier this week has subsided, the death toll will probably keep rising as more incidents come to light, said Platform Decide’s Dias.
On Wednesday, 11 charred bodies were discovered after a warehouse fire in the outskirts of the Maputo, the state-owned Noticias newspaper reported. It said the fire probably started when the building was being looted.
Dias warned that the violence could surge again on Jan. 15, when president elect Daniel Chapo is inaugurated. The Mozambique Bar Association separately called for “genuine dialogue and compromises based on respect for our differences.”
(Bloomberg)
