During prison riots on Christmas Day in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, not 1,500 but about 6,000 prisoners managed to escape. Mozambican police chief Bernardino Rafael announced this on Thursday, Reuters reports. With this new estimate by the police, the number of escapees appears to be much higher than initially thought. However, Rafael still speaks of 33 deaths and 15 injuries due to the riots.
In Mozambique, part of the population has been demonstrating for weeks against one of the most controversial elections in the country’s recent history. On Wednesday, a group of prisoners, incited by some of these demonstrators outside the prison walls, managed to overpower guards and obtain their Kalashnikovs. They then freed a large number of other detainees.
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The fact that so many prisoners were able to escape was partly due to the fact that demonstrators demolished an outer wall of the prison. Amid the violent protests, a large number of prisoners were able to flee, including 29 convicted terrorists. The police were only able to recapture a limited number of prisoners in the chaos.
Last October, Daniel Chapo of the ruling Frelimo party won the presidential election with more than 70 percent of the vote. But the elections soon appeared to have been fraudulent. DECIDE, a citizens’ initiative tasked with monitoring Mozambique’s precarious democratic processes, identified how voter list manipulation and ballot box stuffing damaged the democratic process.
Mozambicans have been taking to the streets for months due to the highly controversial elections. According to human rights organizations, 130 civilians have already been killed in those demonstrations. The police are accused of violently suppressing the demonstrations.