Political violence has escalated dramatically in Zambia ahead of the August 13 general election, with police confirming the separate murders of two people during violent confrontations and targeted attacks on Monday.<\/p>\n
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In Southern Province, Stanley Sakala, a driver for independent parliamentary candidate Confucious Mweene, was killed in his sleep by unknown individuals at a residence in Mazabuka. Meanwhile, in Kaputa, Northern Province, Humphrey Lwisha died from stab wounds following fierce skirmishes between supporters of the ruling United Party for National Development (UPND) and the opposition National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Prosperity (NRPUP).<\/p>\n
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Inspector General of Police Graphel Musamba confirmed that ten suspects have been apprehended in connection with the Kaputa violence, while investigations into the Mazabuka murder remain ongoing.<\/p>\n
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President Hakainde Hichilema has warned that the law will be applied without fear or favour regardless of political affiliation. Electoral watchdogs, including Patrick Kaumba of the Governance, Elections, Advocacy, Research Services Initiative, have strongly condemned the surge in hostility, urging political parties to compete on ideas rather than resorting to archaic conflict.<\/p>\n
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–ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14657,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-38532","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Zambia election campaigns overshadowed by fatal political violence","published_date":"2026-07-01 15:27:15","news_description":"Zambia election campaigns overshadowed by fatal political violence","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38532","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\/38532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38533,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38532\/revisions\/38533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=38532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}