Police in Tanzania released four senior opposition leaders who were arrested for their alleged role in deadly protests against last month’s general election, their party said late on Monday.
The protests plunged Tanzania into its biggest political crisis in decades. Opposition party CHADEMA and some human rights activists said more than 1,000 people were killed by security forces.
The government of President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who was declared the winner of the election with nearly 98 percent of the vote, said those numbers were exaggerated but did not offer its own death toll.
Among those released on bail were CHADEMA Vice Chairman John Heche, who was arrested on October 22 and questioned on suspicion of terrorism, according to his lawyer, and Amani Golugwa, the party’s deputy secretary-general who was arrested over the weekend, the party said on X late on Monday.
CHADEMA leader Tundu Lissu was charged with treason in April. His exclusion from the presidential ballot was one major trigger of the protests.
On Friday, prosecutors charged at least 145 people with treason over their alleged involvement in the protests. More than 170 more were charged with other protest-related offenses.
Hassan’s opponents have accused her government of suppressing dissent and carrying out widespread abductions of critics. In addition, observers from the African Union said the election was not in line with democratic standards.
Hassan has rejected criticism of her human rights record and defended the fairness of the election. Last year, she ordered an investigation into the reported abductions, but no findings have been unveiled.
Senior Tanzanian opposition leaders released on bail, party says
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Senior Tanzanian opposition leaders released on bail, party says
- Deadly protests against last month’s election plunged Tanzania into its biggest political crisis in decades
In Ethiopia, Tigrayans fear return to ‘full-scale war’
- Flights have been suspended into Tigray since Thursday and local authorities reported drone strikes on goods lorries
- The international community fears the fighting could turn into an international conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea
ADDIS ABABA: Tigrayans in northern Ethiopia fear a return to all-out war amid reports that clashes were continuing between local and federal forces on Monday, barely three years after the last devastating conflict in the region.
The civil war of 2020-2022 between the Ethiopian government and Tigray forces killed more than 600,000 people and a peace deal known as the Pretoria Agreement has never fully resolved the tensions.
Fighting broke out again last week in a disputed area of western Tigray called Tselemt and the Afar region to the east of Tigray.
Abel, 38, a teacher in Tigray’s second city Adigrat, said he still hadn’t recovered from the trauma of the last war and had now “entered into another round of high anxiety.”
“If war breaks out now... it could lead to an endless conflict that can even be dangerous to the larger east African region,” added Abel, whose name has been changed along with other interviewees to protect their identity.
Flights have been suspended into Tigray since Thursday and local authorities reported drone strikes on goods lorries on Saturday that killed at least one driver.
In Afar, a humanitarian worker, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said there had been air strikes on Tigrayan forces and that clashes were ongoing on Monday, with tens of thousands of people displaced.
AFP could not independently verify the claims and the government has yet to give any comment on the clashes.
In the regional capital Mekele, Nahom, 35, said many people were booking bus tickets this weekend to leave, fearing that land transport would also be restricted soon.
“My greatest fear is the latest clashes turning into full-scale war and complete siege like what happened before,” he told AFP by phone, adding that he, too, would leave if he could afford it.
Gebremedhin, a 40-year-old civil servant in the city of Axum, said banks had stopped distributing cash and there were shortages in grocery stores.
“This isn’t only a problem of lack of supplies but also hoarding by traders who fear return of conflict and siege,” he said.
The region was placed under a strict lockdown during the last war, with flights suspended, and banking and communications cut off.
The international community fears the fighting could turn into an international conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, whose relations have been increasingly tense in recent months.
The Ethiopian government accuses the Tigrayan authorities and Eritrea of forging closer ties.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “deeply concerned about... the risk of a return to a wider conflict in a region still working to rebuild and recover,” his spokesman said.
The EU said that an “immediate de-escalation is imperative to prevent a renewed conflict.”
