ONE PERSON DEAD IN CLASH WITH POLICE IN NHAMATANDA

Police shot one person dead and wounded six others in a clash with a lynch mob on Sunday in the central Mozambican town of Nhamatanda, reports the Beira daily paper “Diario de Mocambique”.The crowd attacked the police in an attempt to seize a man they considered a “dangerous bandit” who had been “spreading terror” in Nhamatanda. America Alberto, the brother-in-law of one of those injured, Marta Franque, told “Diario de Mocambique” that the crowd had every intention of taking the law into their own hands and lynching the alleged bandit. Alberto said “the police accompanied a dangerous bandit whom the people have been seeking for a long time in order to lynch him. As an authority, the police tried to protect the bandit, and then the people began to throw stones to distract the police”. The police responded to the hail of stones by shooting live ammunition at the crowd. One person was killed and six others were injured. Five were treated in the Nhamatanda rural hospital, while Franque’s condition was serious enough to warrant her transfer to Beira central hospital. Alberto said that, after the shooting, he had sought explanations from the Nhamatanda police commander, but without success. So far there has been no official comment from the police about the clash.