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Death Toll in Mozambique's Montequez Prison Over 90: Testimony
A prison guard has testified at the trial of the five policemen, who are accused of responsibility for the deaths of dozens of detainees last November in the northern Mozambican town of Montepuez, that the true death toll in the lethal police cell was at least 10 more than what has been officially admitted.
According to the trial report in the Noticias newspaper on Thursday, the guard, named Daniel Wahia, said that 85 detainees, instead of 75, died in the grotesquely overcrowded cell on November 21-22. Since eight people died in the cell two nights earlier, this will mean that the true Montepuez death toll was at least 93.
"There were 85 bodies," Wahia told the court. "I counted them. There were 21 survivors, and we used them to remove the bodies and then clean the cell."
The mass detentions took place after the November 9 clashes in Montepuez between the police and demonstrators organized by the former rebel movement Renamo, in which at least 18 demonstrators and seven policemen died.
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