MACHAFUKO MSUMBIJI

Yesterday people went out in the street and set up barricades. Slum dwellers tried to come down to the city centre, but were kept out by the police. The entire city is devastated: banks were destroyed, shops looted. When authorities intervened they shot live rounds of bullets at the crowd. The city feels like a war zone. There aren’t very many policemen, and they’re having a lot of trouble controlling the situation.


The protests are going on today. We’re blocked at home, it’s impossible to go outside. We can’t buy anything: all the shops are closed, as well as banks and other administrations. Phone lines disrupted. I hear regular gunshots outside my window.
"We received an SMS calling for us to protest on September 1"

The situation reminds me of the hunger riots in 2008, which occurred for the same reasons. The difference is that those only lasted for a day. These have gone one for two days already, and things don’t look like they are calming down. An SMS had been circulating among Mozambicans for the past four days, calling on people to go out in the streets on September 1. It says the protests will go on until Friday. I don’t know who sent the original message. That’s the problem with this revolt: it’s not organised. We’re missing someone who can speak in the name of the people.

Inflation is a major problem in Mozambique: it affects every product. It’s becoming a struggle just to get by for most people. Six months ago, 25 kg of rice cost 500 metical [11€], now it’s nearly 1000 meticais [21€]. When you know that the minimum wage is just 1,300 meticais [28 euros], you can see what the problem is. Petrol prices have been raised three times in the past six months.

People are very angry. When the government announced two weeks ago that the cost of bread and public transportation would rise on September 1, it was the final straw for most people.

The government is doing nothing to help. Our president made a statement yesterday, but in substance said nothing: he just described the situation. There was an emergency government meeting today, but we haven’t heard anything from them yet.""