Tensions in Mozambique run high ahead of controversial inauguration – with at least 300 killed by police
Young men guard their barricades in the Casa Branca neighbourhood on the outskirts of Mozambique’s capital, Maputo.
They block off our van and one of them flashes a knife as we get down and try to convince them to speak to us. It is a state of frustration, rage and hyper-defence.
The escalating civil unrest began in October, after an election overshadowed by allegations of rigging against Mozambique‘s ruling party, Frente de Libertaco de Moçambique (FRELIMO), who were declared winners.
With the inauguration of FRELIMO’s presidential candidate Daniel Chapo now just a day away, tensions in the capital are running high – and the number of deaths due to the police crackdown on the protests has now topped 300.
As we talk to the men in Casa Branca, balaclava-wearing police officers in armoured vehicles and pick-up trucks close in. Live shots ring out and tear gas is directed at our small gathering.
We take cover as the young men run into their neighbourhood.
Two armed police officers wearing balaclavas
Armed police patrolled just metres away – and soon fired shots and tear gas
We come back to speak to them after calm returns. Trust has been built in the short moments of chaos and more people join from the neighbourhood inroads to air their grievances.
“Why are they firing at us while terrorists kill our people in Cabo Delgado?” yells one man waving a tear gas canister and citing the Islamic State insurgency ravaging northern Mozambique.
“How can you live in a poor country and buy properties in Dubai?!” shouts another.
“A coconut costs 100 metical! How can a coconut be 100? Mozambique grows coconuts!” says another.
The young men agreed to speak to us after the police stopped firing at them
An older woman joins the furore: “People were shot with live bullets. Right here where we are standing. They are not aiming upwards but right at the people.
“Who voted for them? Who voted for them to rule us? We didn’t vote for FRELIMO or Chapo. We voted for Venencio!”
The crowd soon starts yelling the name of one man: Venancio Mondlane. The pastor-turned-political commentator who ran for president in Mozambique’s October election after resigning as a member of parliament.
Mr Mondlane has just returned to Maputo after nearly three months in exile following threats to his life and the double murder of his lawyer and closest associate.
At a hotel in the capital, he tells us: “I heard the people say that now it is time to forget that kind of local level, local municipality elections. Now we want you to be the president of Mozambique.”
When he arrived at Maputo International Airport, he took a presidential oath on the Bible to the throngs of people who faced tear gas and rubber bullets to meet him on arrival.
“This is what people told me on social media and many of them when they see me,” he says. “I was praying on this and I received the answer. The divine answer was: it is time, you must go. And then I begin this and run as a candidate for the elections.”
After rallying people across the country, Mozambique’s National Electoral Commission (CNE) declared victory for Daniel Chapo with 70% of the vote.
Daniel Chapo’s inauguration is scheduled to take place on Wednesday
Mr Chapo was the presidential candidate and secretary-general of FRELIMO – the founding party of modern Mozambique that liberated its people from three centuries of Portuguese colonial rule in 1975 and held power for the 50 years that followed.
In recent years, FRELIMO’s liberation-era generals and ministers have been accused of fraud and corruption – most notably, a $2bn secret US loan scandal.
“With the mercy of God, they would only get like 10%. The high mercy of God,” Mr Mondlane says, pointing to the sky.
“That is why they are killing people. They are shooting people. During the election, they arrested our party monitors that were key to monitoring the polls.”
A man allegedly injured by a gunshot wound – fired by police – receives treatment in the city of Matola
Local and international independent observers have cited irregularities in the voting process and a lack of transparency in declaring results.
The 179-person European Union Election Observer mission noted “irregularities during the counting and unjustified alteration of election results at the polling station and district level”.
Mr Mondlane called for three days of national strike and protest in the lead-up to Mr Chapo’s presidential inauguration. If not to take power now, then at least to make a point.
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Venancio Mondlane recently ended a three-month self-imposed exile
“The best situation – the most comfortable – is to take power now. But we know that is not automatic,” he explains. “Some things are a process – resistance is a process.
“Yes, it is symbolic but it is also practical because when you have an inauguration one of the things that have an impact is the number of crowds.
“If you have got something like 90% of people protesting and 10% of people at the inauguration, then this has political meaning – even to the international community.”
The streets in central Maputo were eerily silent as MPs were sworn in on Monday. Armoured vehicles, the military and the police were widely deployed.
The main room of the Assembly of the Republic was buzzing with Mozambique’s ruling elite. Two half-rows of empty chairs were a loud reminder of the boycott fuelled by Mr Mondlane.
As the day wore on, reports emerged of protesters shot in the next city, Matola.
At Matola’s main hospital, we see men who say they were in the area when the police started firing. In a single ward, one man had a gunshot wound shot in his crotch, another in his forearm arm and one in his leg.
Even as he writhes in pain from a bullet hole in his leg, Arone tells me that time is up.
“I want a change,” he says. “This government don’t make well for our people.”
A man lays injured at a hospital in Matola
In the upper balcony of the Assembly of the Republic, I ask President-elect Daniel Chapo what he has to say to Mozambicans whose loved ones were killed in the run-up to his presidency, to protect FRELIMO’s grip on power.
“Firstly, it is very important to be in power – after the inauguration – and then it is important to work with all people in Mozambique to develop our country,” says Mr Chapo.
Will there be any accountability for the 300 people who were killed?
“Yes, we are working now with it. We know it is not good and we want to talk to people. It is good to be in peace and develop our country.”
US president-elect Donald Trump has suggested Israel and Hamas could agree a Gaza ceasefire by the end of the week.
Talks between Israeli and Hamas representatives resumed in the Qatari capital Doha yesterday, after US President Joe Biden indicated a deal to stop the fighting was “on the brink” on Monday.
A draft agreement has been sent to both sides. It includes provisions for the release of hostages and a phased Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza.
Qatar says Israel and Hamas are at their “closest point” yet to a ceasefire deal.
Two Hamas officials said the group has accepted the draft agreement, with Israel still considering the deal.
An Israeli official said a deal is close but “we are not there” yet.
More than 46,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its ground offensive in the aftermath of the 7 October attacks, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Read more:
What’s in the proposed deal?
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on beachfront cafe in Deir al Balah. Pic: Reuters
Biden hails possibility of agreement
President Biden said it would include a hostage release deal and a “surge” of aid to Palestinians, in his final foreign policy speech as president.
“So many innocent people have been killed, so many communities have been destroyed. Palestinian people deserve peace,” he said.
“The deal would free the hostages, halt the fighting, provide security to Israel, and allow us to significantly surge humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians who suffered terribly in this war that Hamas started.”
Qatari mediators have sent Israel and Hamas a draft proposal for an agreement to halt the fighting.
Analysis:
Deal might be close, but there are many unanswered questions
Pic: Reuters
Trump: ‘We’re very close’
President-elect Donald Trump has also discussed a possible peace deal during a phone interview with the Newsmax channel.
“We’re very close to getting it done and they have to get it done,” he said.
“If they don’t get it done, there’s going to be a lot of trouble out there, a lot of trouble, like they have never seen before.
“And they will get it done. And I understand there’s been a handshake and they’re getting it finished and maybe by the end of the week. But it has to take place, it has to take place.”
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Pic: AP
Israeli official: Former Hamas leader held up deal
Speaking on Tuesday as negotiations resumed in Qatar, an anonymous Israeli official said that an agreement was “close, but we are not there”.
They accused Hamas of previously “dictating, not negotiating” but said this has changed in the last few weeks.
“Yahya Sinwar was the main obstacle for a deal,” they added.
Sinwar, believed to be the mastermind of the 7 October attacks, led Hamas following the assassination of his predecessor but was himself killed in October last year.
Under Sinwar, the Israeli official claimed, Hamas was “not in a rush” to bring a hostage deal but this has changed since his death and since the IDF “started to dismantle the Shia axis”.
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Biden: ‘Never, never, never, ever give up’
Iran ‘weaker than it’s been in decades’
Yesterday, President Biden also hailed Washington’s support for Israel during two Iranian attacks in 2024.
“All told, Iran is weaker than it’s been in decades,” the president said.
Mr Biden claimed America’s adversaries were weaker than when he took office four years ago and that the US was “winning the worldwide competition”.
“Compared to four years ago, America is stronger, our alliances are stronger, our adversaries and competitors are
weaker,” he said.
“We have not gone to war to make these things happen.”
The US president is expected to give a farewell address on Wednesday.
A draft ceasefire deal on the table between Israel and Hamas would see 33 hostages set free and a phased withdrawal of IDF forces from parts of Gaza.
President Joe Biden said an agreement to stop the fighting was “on the brink” and high level negotiations between the two sides resumed in Qatar on Tuesday.
The deal would see a number of things happen in a first stage, with negotiations for the second stage beginning in the third week of the ceasefire.
It would also allow a surge in humanitarian aid into Gaza, which has been devastated by more than a year of war.
Details of what the draft proposal entails have been emerging on Tuesday, reported by Israeli and Palestinian officials.
Relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages hold photos of their loved ones during a protest on 8 January. Pic: AP
Hostages to be returned
In the first stage of the potential ceasefire, 33 hostages would be set free.
These include women (including female soldiers), children, men over the age of 50, wounded and sick.
Israel believes most of these hostages are alive but there has not been any official confirmation from Hamas.
In return for the release of the hostages, Israel would free more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
People serving long sentences for deadly attacks would be included in this but Hamas fighters who took part in the 7 October attack would not be released.
An arrangement to prevent Palestinian “terrorists” from going back to the West Bank would be included in the deal, an anonymous Israeli official said.
Read more:
A timeline of events since the 7 October attacks
The hostages who still haven’t returned home
Smoke billows as buildings lie in ruin in Beit Hanoun in Gaza. Pic: Reuters
Phased Israeli withdrawal from Gaza
The agreement also includes a phased withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, with IDF troops remaining in the border perimeter to defend Israeli border towns and villages.
Security arrangements would be implemented at the Philadelphi corridor – a narrow strip of land that runs along the border between Egypt and Gaza – with Israel withdrawing from parts of it after the first few days of the deal.
The Rafah Crossing between Egypt and Gaza would start to work gradually to allow the crossing of people who are sick and other humanitarian cases out of Gaza for treatment.
Unarmed North Gaza residents would be allowed to return to their homes, with a mechanism introduced to ensure no weapons are moved there.
“We will not leave the Gaza Strip until all our hostages are back home,” the Israeli official said.
What will happen to Gaza in the future?
There is less detail about the future of Gaza – from how it will be governed, to any guarantees that this agreement will bring a permanent end to the war.
“The only thing that can answer for now is that we are ready for a ceasefire,” the Israeli official said.
“This is a long ceasefire and the deal that is being discussed right now is for a long one. There is a big price for releasing the hostages and we are ready to pay this price.”
The international community has said Gaza must be run by Palestinians, but there has not been a consensus about how this should be done – and the draft ceasefire agreement does not seem to address this either.
In the past, Israel has said it will not end the war leaving Hamas in power. It also previously rejected the possibility of the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited governing powers in the West Bank, from taking over the administration of Gaza.
Since the beginning of its military campaign in Gaza, Israel has also said it would retain security control over the territory after the fighting ends.
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