{"id":32869,"date":"2026-04-23T19:15:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T17:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=32869"},"modified":"2026-04-23T19:15:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T17:15:39","slug":"over-500-killed-in-last-years-election-violence-tanzania-inquiry","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/over-500-killed-in-last-years-election-violence-tanzania-inquiry\/","title":{"rendered":"Over 500 killed in last year&#8217;s election violence: Tanzania Inquiry"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>At least 518 people were killed in violence that broke out \u200bduring Tanzania&#8217;s elections last October, a government-appointed commission of inquiry said this Thursday, in the first \u200cofficial acknowledgment of the scale of the deadly unrest.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The commission, however, placed the blame for the violence with the protesters, infuriating the government&#8217;s opponents, who accused it of bias.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The United Nations human rights office estimated last year that hundreds were killed in violence \u200bdriven by the exclusion of leading opposition candidates from presidential and parliamentary elections. The main opposition \u200bparty has said thousands died.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Tanzanian authorities have previously declined to comment on casualty figures, \u2060saying they were awaiting the report of the commission, which President Samia Suluhu Hassan appointed in November. They \u200bhave denied allegations by human rights groups that the security services used excessive force.<\/div>\n<div>\nSpeaking at a ceremony to \u200bhand over the report to Hassan, Commission Chairperson Mohamed Chande Othman said the death toll could be an undercount because of difficulties identifying victims. He did not pass judgment on the actions of law enforcement, instead recommending that a commission of criminal \u200binvestigation be formed to probe specific incidents.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Chande said the commission had &#8220;indisputable evidence&#8221; the violence was planned and \u200bfunded by &#8220;trained people&#8221; but did not name them.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cOrganisers used various techniques, including using people without deep understanding and desperate youth, while \u200cencouraging \u2060simultaneous acts of violence across different locations,&#8221; he said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Hassan, who was declared the winner of the presidential election with nearly 98% of the vote, has said the protests were an attempt to overthrow her government and received foreign funding, without providing evidence.<\/div>\n<div>The commission&#8217;s report was not immediately made public and it was not clear whether \u200bit would be. In \u200bcomments at the ceremony, \u2060Hassan said the report was &#8220;the property of the President&#8221;.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The main opposition party, CHADEMA, rejected the commission&#8217;s work, saying in a statement on Thursday that a government accused of \u200bcarrying out violent abuses cannot investigate itself.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Chande acknowledged receiving allegations that people were \u200bshot in \u2060homes and shops, including near a cafe in the northern city of Mwanza.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Reuters reporting found that police officers massacred more than a dozen unarmed young men at the cafe far from any known protest. Witnesses to other incidents \u2060in Mwanza \u200band two other cities also told Reuters they saw officers shoot \u200bat people who were not protesting.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The government said at the time that it took concerns about the use of force seriously but \u200bthat many allegations were based on unverified and out-of-context information.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":15324,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-32869","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Chande acknowledged receiving allegations that people were \u200bshot in \u2060homes.","published_date":"","news_description":"Chande acknowledged receiving allegations that people were \u200bshot in \u2060homes.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32870,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32869\/revisions\/32870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=32869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}