Police: Mozambican prisoners suffocated to death

Twelve Mozambican prisoners who died in custody this week after being arrested for rioting over a cholera epidemic died of suffocation, officials said on Thursday.

Arsenia Massingue, police commander in the north-eastern province of Nampula, said authorities were still investigating the events leading up to the deaths.

Eleven of the prisoners who died were part of a group arrested for inciting a cholera riot that killed three Red Cross volunteers and two policemen last month, Massingue said.

“There is an investigation open and we hope to have results in a matter of days,” she added.

A police chief and a criminal investigations director for the district where the prisoner deaths occurred have been suspended, an interior ministry said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

State newspaper Noticias had reported the prisoners were killed when fighting broke out in their overcrowded cell.

A Red Cross spokesperson said the rioters believed the chlorine used to treat the water supply was actually spreading cholera, which has killed at least 119 in Mozambique this year.

The remaining prisoners have been transferred to other facilities.—Sapa-AFP