Maputo, 5 Feb (AIM) – Rioters released some 220 prisoners from the Gorongosa district prison in the central Moambican province of Sofala on Monday, according to the provincial police spokesperson, Dercio Chacate.
Chacate told a press conference in the city of Beira that about 500 rioters, led by artisanal miners and drivers of motorbike taxis, demanded reductions in the prices of basic goods. They threw up barricades and blocked traffic on roads in Gorongosa municipality, including the stretch of the country’s main north-south highway (EN1) that runs through Gorongosa.
Amateur video showed the rioters rampaging through a local market and stealing goods from the stallholders. They also attacked and damaged the home of the mayor of Gorongosa, before turning their attentions to the local prison where they released 220 inmates. Chacate said that those released included people sentenced to prison terms for murder and drug trafficking.
Several hours after the breakout, only 12 of the prisoners had been recaptured, while the rest remained at large. The police claimed that, by Tuesday, calm had returned to Gorongosa.
During the post election rioting, several prisons were attacked. Inmates were released from the Inhassunge, Ile, and Morrumbala district prisons in Zambézia province, but the largest jail break occurred in December, in Maputo Central prison and the adjacent top security prison, where 1,534 inmates escaped. Most of these men, some of them regarded as highly dangerous, are still at large.
(AIM)
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