Africa-Press – Mozambique. Armando Tivane street, in Nampula’s Poetas neighbourhood, once again experienced moments of panic this Wednesday afternoon due to an assault by police special forces on the Renamo provincial political delegation headquarters there.
Images circulated since the second half of yesterday afternoon showing the heavily armed police and armoured vehicles involved.
Outside the delegation, the forces of law and order began by firing live bullets and tear gas into the Renamo delegation, and later broached the interior, leaving with documents, computers and the cell phones of the members of the party in the apartment at the time.
Neighbouring residents, including workers from nearby institutions, panicked, in their ignorance of the motive for the police action.
Since the post-election crisis broke out, the police regularly open fire on Renamo members at the location and at the city’s political delegation.
Arrests
Ikweli learned from an anonymous but reliable police source that the mission was aimed at rescuing two police officers who had been kidnapped by Renamo members when they were patrolling the street that morning.
In turn, Renamo alleges that the police have detained more than 50 of its members and supporters.
Nelson Carvalho, Renamo spokesperson in Nampula, said that the situation arose after a party march and rally protesting against the electoral results on Wednesday became aware of the presence of two undercover police officers in their midst, one of them armed.
“When our security detail became aware of the situation, they apprehended the men. One of them, fortunately, managed to identify himself as an agent, stating that he was an armed PRM agent and showed his documentation, while the other denied being an agent and said that he was a member of Renamo. But because we know our members we took him into our delegation and from the investigations we realized that he was one of the heads of the Special Operative Group (GOE) [one of the PRM’s most brutal special forces] and that since the beginning of the marches he had shared, with his GOE leadership, details of everything we did,” said Carvalho, adding that it was during the interrogation of the agent that the PRM burst in, guns ablaze, to rescue him.
“During the investigation of this citizen, he ended up admitting that he has been spying on us since the first days. It was during this process, when we were communicating with our national headquarters, that we were surprised by a group of bandits licensed by Frelimo, the government and the President of the Republic to vandalize our headquarters,” said the Nampula “partridge” spokesman.
The police’s action is being criticised by residents of the building where the Renamo party’s provincial headquarters is located.
Gito Noras said that residents, especially children, felt sick because of the tear gas, and appealed to the police to take into account that “this building does not just have the headquarters of Renamo; there are families who live here and have been affected by today’s situation. There are babies here and various institutions, and those who live here who have nothing to do with Renamo”.
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