Tanzania opposition says 2,000 killed in election violence

Tanxania

Dar es Salaam –  Tanzania’s main opposition party on Thursday said more than 2,000 people were killed in a week of election violence, calling for sanctions against officials it accused of crimes against humanity.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan was declared the winner of October 29 polls with 98 percent of the vote, but her government was accused of rigging the polls and overseeing a campaign of murders and abductions of her critics that sparked nationwide protests and riots.Opposition party Chadema’s deputy chairperson John Heche told reporters that Tanzania witnessed “mass killings of more than 2,000 people and over 5,000 injured in the space of just one week”.

He said the violence was carried out “with direct involvement of the state” and that it amounted to “crimes against humanity”.

Previous opposition counts had put the deaths at more than 1,000. The government has not given a death toll.

Heche urged the international community to “impose sanctions on all individuals involved in planning and executing these acts of criminality and crimes against humanity”.

In a live online broadcast, he said those responsible should be subjected to travel bans, including restrictions on their families.

Heche also said the unrest triggered a surge of people fleeing the country, alongside “the abduction and enforced disappearance of hundreds of civilians”.

Chadema further accused security units of carrying out rapes, torture and “gruesome killings”, and of engaging in widespread looting and arbitrary arrests.

The party urged authorities to return the bodies of those killed so families could bury them.

Authorities have continued to stifle dissent, with planned protests earlier this week seeing empty streets and a significant security presence.

Hassan last week justified the killings, saying it was necessary to prevent the overthrow of the government.

“The force that was used corresponds to the situation at hand,” she said in a speech.

Hassan has formed an inquiry commission into the violence, which the opposition says includes only government loyalists, instead calling for an independent investigation.

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Source: AFP

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