Over 700 reported dead in Tanzania post-poll clashes

DODOMA(Tanzania): Tanzania’s main opposition party has claimed that hundreds of people were killed in protests following this week’s disputed elections, while the United Nations says it has “credible reports” at least 10 people died, Al Jazeera reported on Friday.

“As we speak, the number of deaths in [Dar-es-Salaam] is around 350 and there are more than 200 in Mwanza,” Chadema party spokesperson John Kitoka said on Friday, referring to the commercial capital in northern Tanzania. “If we add the figures from other places in the country, we arrive at a total of around 700 deaths,” Al Jazeera quoted.

Chadema said its members had toured hospitals across the country to reach the figure. Tanzania’s government has released any estimates on casualties, only saying its forces were restoring order after “isolated incidents”.

The opposition’s estimated toll contrasted with that of the UN. In a Friday briefing, UN human rights spokesperson Seif Magango told Geneva reporters that credible sources had indicated at least 10 deaths at the hands of security forces so far, as reported by Al Jazeera.

“We call on the security forces to refrain from using unnecessary or disproportionate force, including lethal weapons, against protesters, and to make every effort to de-escalate tensions,” Magango said in the same briefing.

Demonstrations erupted on Wednesday in Dar-es-Salaam, a city of more than seven million people, after disputed and chaotic elections that saw the two main opposition parties barred from participating.

Several vehicles, a petrol station and police stations were set ablaze by protesters infuriated by the restricted election choices and harassment of opposition figures.

The latest developments arrived as hundreds of demonstrators squared off with police for the third day on Friday, demanding the national electoral body stop announcing electoral results. The government deployed the military onto the streets and enforced an internet shutdown.

A day earlier, protesters who defied a curfew in the Mbagala, Gongo la Mboto and Kiluvya neighbourhoods of Dar-es-Salaam were met with tear gas and the sounds of gunfire.

Wednesday’s elections saw President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s two biggest challengers excluded from the race, infuriating citizens and rights groups that have also decried an intensifying crackdown against opposition members, activists and journalists, Al Jazeera reported. (ANI)