No fewer than 1,500 prisoners have escaped from a prison in Mozambique, taking advantage of ongoing political unrest triggered by disputed election results, police say.
According to police chief Bernardino Rafael, thirty-three people were killed and 15 injured in clashes with guards.
About 150 more fugitives have since been recaptured, he added.
Protests broke out on Monday in response to Mozambique’s highest court confirming that the ruling Frelimo party, in power since 1975, had won October’s presidential elections.
Mr. Rafael stated that groups of anti-government protesters had approached the prison in the capital, Maputo, on Wednesday. Prisoners used the unrest to knock down a wall and escape, he said.
Mozambique has been rocked by civil unrest since disputed elections in October. Official results showed the ruling Frelimo’s candidate for president, Daniel Chapo, winning.
Fresh protests erupted on Monday, when the constitutional court decided that Chapo had won the election but reduced his margin of victory.
In October, initial results showed Daniel Chapo with 71% of the vote versus Venâncio Mondlane’s 20%.
The court has now determined that he won 65% to Mondlane’s 24%. A BBC reporter discovered Maputo was like a ghost town on Christmas Eve, with practically all shops closed and residents remaining at home to avoid being caught up in the city’s worst unrest since Frelimo first took office in 1975.
Frelimo offices, police stations, banks, and factories have been robbed, vandalised, and set on fire around the country.
Mondlane, who has since fled Mozambique, had been urging his supporters to protest what he claimed was a corrupt vote. In a weekend social media statement, he predicted a “new popular uprising” if the outcome was not reversed.
Approximately 150 people have been killed in three months of protests following the elections.
