Maputo, 29 Dec (AIM) – A district delegate of Mozambique’s main opposition party, PODEMOS, was shot inside his home in Mocuba, in the central province of Zambézia, on Thursday.
According to PODEMOS spokesperson, Duclesio Chico, speaking to reporters on Friday, the delegate, Xadreque Francisco, was at home with his wife when three armed individuals broke into their house and fired repeatedly at him.
But he survived the attack and is currently recovering in a Zambezia health unit.
This was the third assassination, or attempted assassination, of senior PODEMOS members since the 9 November general elections. Last Sunday, the party’s secretary for mobilisation in Mocuba, Eugénio Madeira, was shot in the head near his house.
Earlier victims were Elvino Dias and Paulo Guambe, a lawyer and an election agent of PODEMOS who were shot dead in central Maputo on 19 October.
Despite government promises of a thorough investigation into the murders, so far no suspects have been detained, and so Dias and Guambe join the long list of victims where the killers have not been identified.
Suspicion falls on the police, since it is known that death squads are operating inside the police force. We know this because human rights activist Anastacio Matavel was murdered by one such death squad in October 2019, in the southern city of Xai-Xai.
The death squad that gunned Matavel down consisted of five people, all of them members of the police force. They might never have been identified if the murder had gone to plan. But their escape vehicle was involved in a serious traffic accident as they tried to speed out of Xai-Xai. Two of the assassins died in the crash, two survived and were arrested, and a fifth evaded capture.
Given the precedent of the Matavel assassination, it is legitimate to suspect that police killers are involved in the murder of any prominent opposition politician.
(AIM)
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