Mozambique mourns dozens killed in two months of election unrest

Maputo: One Mozambique family is mourning a 16 year old girl shot dead on Christmas Day; another is devastated over the loss of a 22 year old son, bro...

Maputo: One Mozambique family is mourning a 16-year-old girl shot dead on Christmas Day; another is devastated over the loss of a 22-year-old son, brother and breadwinner killed on the sidelines of a protest weeks earlier.

Both deaths are blamed on security forces, like many of the nearly 280 lives lost in more than two months of violence in Mozambique sparked by a disputed election, according to a toll by a local NGO.

Many of the dead are young people who led waves of protests after initial results on October 24 announced the winner was Daniel Chapo of the Frelimo party, in power for half a century.

Rights groups say security forces used live bullets against the protesters, many of them followers of opposition leader Venancio Mondlane, who rejects the results which he says were rigged.

But some victims just got caught up inadvertently in the tensions.