Mass Deaths in Mozambique Prison

M A P U T O, Mozambique, Nov. 24 -- Dozens of Mozambican inmates — many of them opposition supporters — have been found dead in a small prison. Police said the inmates had suffocated, but an opposition leader on Thursday accused the ruling party of poisoning them.

Mozambican Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi said he did not know exactly how many inmates had died in the prison in Montepuez, but television reports put the death toll at more than 75 while state radio reported 83 dead.

Mocumbi said government investigators would be joined by a team of international experts to probe the deaths, which occurred overnight Tuesday. He said there was apparently no violence.

Doctors began autopsies on the dead on Thursday afternoon, but their initial findings were not made public.

The deaths have fueled already strained political tensions in this impoverished southeast Africa country because many of the prisoners have ties to the opposition RENAMO movement.

Opposition leader Alfonso Dlakama accused the ruling party,called FRELIMO, of orchestrating the deaths.

“FRELIMO ordered the prisoners to be poisoned,” he said.Ruling party General Secretary Manuel Tome denied the allegations, saying Dlakama “talks without thinking.”

Bloody Civil War

RENAMO and FRELIMO fought a 17-year civil war that ended in1992, and tensions continue.

On Nov. 9, Montepuez, 1,000 miles north of the capital, Maputo, was the scene of violent clashes between police and supporters of RENAMO, which is now part of the opposition coalition in parliament.

Seven policemen and 18 civilians died in the protest over the outcome of last year’s elections, which RENAMO says were rigged. During the protests, RENAMO supporters overran the town prison and released its 93 inmates.

Most of those subsequently held in the prison were arrested for their participation in the protests.

Montepuez, the second-largest town in the northernmost CaboDelgado province, is a FRELIMO stronghold.