Without warning, the policemen opened fire in different directions, triggering panic. Witnesses say the officers ordered men who had taken shelter in a nearby cafe to lie on the ground and then shot at them. The massacre in Mjimwema, reported by Reuters in detail for the first time, is one of the deadliest known incidents from days of violence around Tanzania’s October 29 elections.

Driven by the exclusion of leading opposition candidates from the elections and a surge of arrests and alleged abductions of government critics, the violence was the worst political unrest in Tanzania’s post-independence history and has undermined its reputation for stability.

–ChannelAfrica–