Medical personnel and emergency workers on Tanzania’s volatile Zanzibar archipelago on Friday prepared for possible election violence as voters readied to cast ballots in hotly contested weekend polls.
Amid fears of a repeat of the deadly clashes that erupted amid protests after the previous elections in 2000, equipment is being stockpiled and facilities for emergency care set up as part of contingency plans to deal with hundreds of casualties.
Caught unprepared by the ferocity of the earlier violence that left more than 30 dead, the medical personnel vowed not to be taken by surprise again as Sunday’s elections loomed after a campaign marred by political attacks that have injured nearly 200 people.
”This time, there is much more preparation,” said Ubwa Suleiman, Zanzibar coordinator for the Tanzanian Red Cross and Red Crescent societies.
”The tension seems higher than before,” he said, echoing the tone of dire travel warnings issued by Western nations for Zanzibar during the election period on the exotic Indian Ocean beach destination.
”We are prepared for clashes that would lead to wounded,” said Francois Blancy, the deputy head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) regional East African delegation.
Along with other groups, the ICRC helped coordinate a crisis plan that will be able to handle several hundred injuries in the coming days on the two main islands — Unguja and Pemba — that make up semi-autonomous Zanzibar.
”The emergency programme we have is meant to respond to 200 to 300 wounded,” Blancy said.
Earlier on Friday, after hours of confusion, Zanzibar electoral officials decided to go ahead with Sunday’s polls — in which voters will choose Zanzibar’s president and members of its Parliament — despite a decision to delay the elections on the Tanzanian mainland.
While the campaign on the mainland has been relatively calm, the run-up to the polls on Zanzibar has become increasingly violent and vitriolic, with the opposition accusing the ruling party of trying to rig the vote.
Opposition presidential candidate Seif Sharif Hamad has vowed to stage mass street protests and a Ukraine-style revolution if his Civic United Front (CUF) is robbed of victory as he claims happened in the two previous elections.
Emergency plans
Concerned at the potential for widespread violence, the Tanzanian Red Cross, ICRC and Médécins sans Frontières (MSF) set out their emergency response plan for Zanzibar and Pemba.
MSF put on hold an anti-malaria programme in order to concentrate on the preparations, according to Ana Lemos, the charity’s coordinator for the plan.
One MSF office in Stone Town, the Zanzibari capital, has been transformed into an emergency first-aid station, stacked high with stretchers, bandages, syringes and disinfectant, while the group has sent an additional two doctors to Pemba, which was hit hardest by the violence in 2001.
”Last time, there was a lack of access to medical facilities,” Lemos said.
Her colleagues agreed.
”In 2001, there were no medical supplies, they came one day after the violence,” said Suleiman of the Tanzanian Red Cross, which has 500 volunteers at its disposal and has been building up its stores of medical and surgical supplies on the islands.
It has given those volunteers ”special training for things unusual in this part of the world, like the bullet wounds”, he said.
”We pray for the best but we have to be ready for the worst.” — Sapa-AFP