Amnesty International (AI) calls on the Mozambican government to urgently launch effective and thorough investigations into all deaths, incidents of torture and other ill-treatment and other human rights violations reported during the post-election protests and to commit to publishing the findings.

In a statement released last Thursday (26) and quoted by VOAThe human rights organization challenges the President of the Republic, Daniel Chapo, to "prove his willingness to break this cycle of impunity by defending requests for urgent investigations and guaranteeing full cooperation with the investigating authorities".

"It's the bloodiest electoral cycle in Mozambique's post-civil war history, but those suspected of the crimes have enjoyed total impunity," writes the organization's director for East and Southern Africa, Khanyo Farisè, who called the "repression of protests in Mozambique after last year's elections "appalling".

She also stresses that the Mozambican head of state "must also guarantee effective reparations to the victims and survivors and use his authority to put an end to human rights violations by the security forces during the protests".

"Since 21 October, after the assassination of two important figures aligned with the opposition, there have been credible reports of widespread human rights violations, with more than 300 people killed, including children, in an attempt to repress the protests, with the vast majority of deaths attributed to the security forces, according to the counts of the monitoring groups," the organization's note said.

Government forces, according to AI, "shot and wounded more than 700 other people and arbitrarily detained thousands of people, allegedly subjecting them to torture and other ill-treatment in custody".

(Photo DR)