Police have fired gunshots on the streets of Tanzania’s largest city during protests after a tumultuous presidential election, as Amnesty International reports the deaths of at least two people.
In Dar-es-Salaam, a city of more than seven million people, protesters who defied a curfew on Thursday in the Mbagala, Gongo la Mboto and Kiluvya neighbourhoods were met with tear gas and the sounds of gunfire on the day after the election.
Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s regional director for East and Southern Africa, said in a statement the organisation had received reports that one member of the public and one police officer had been killed. He called the deaths “deeply disturbing” and urged police to exercise restraint.
“The Tanzanian authorities must promptly conduct a thorough and independent investigation into the unlawful use of lethal force against protesters, and the perpetrators must be held accountable,” Chagutah added.
Internet access remained down across the city, where hundreds had set polling stations alight and chanted their discontent on election day.
“We have been silent for so long,” one protester shouted in a video posted to TikTok and verified by Al Jazeera. “What have we been doing?”
Wednesday’s election saw President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s two biggest challengers excluded from the race, infuriating citizens and rights groups who have also decried an intensifying crackdown against opposition members, activists and journalists.
Despite the internet blackout, protesters continued to organise on the Zello app, discussing possible marches on government buildings. But roads across the country, including the main road leading to Dar-es-Salaam’s Julius Nyerere International Airport, were blocked, the United States embassy said in a security alert.
