(Bloomberg) -- Mozambique’s main opposition leader said he’ll announce plans for renewed protests against the outcome of October elections later this week, a phase he has suggested will be more severe than previous demonstrations in which scores of people have died.
Venâncio Mondlane, who claims he won the vote, has been orchestrating civil unrest since fleeing the country on Oct. 21. Details of the next installment dubbed the “tip of the spear” will be revealed on Jan. 2, he said in a livestream on Monday.
The upheaval has rocked the economy of one of the world’s poorest nations, where three in four people live on less than $2.15 a day, hitting mines and the region’s biggest aluminum smelter. The Mozambique Liberation Front, which has held power for 49 years, has struggled to diffuse the tensions, with rioters torching scores of its offices.
The death toll from the protests has reached 278, with most fatalities caused by police bullets, according to Decide Platform, a local monitoring group.
Mozambique’s dollar bonds due 2031 were the second-worst performers on Monday in a Bloomberg gauge of hard currency sovereign debt from emerging and frontier nations. The notes fell 2.5% to 78.8 cents on the dollar, the lowest since November 2023.
The UK advised citizens to avoid all but essential travel to the southeast African nation, while the German government said its citizens should consider temporarily leaving. South Africa’s security forces intensified operations along the country’s shared border with Mozambique.
“These measures aim to prevent and combat any opportunistic crimes that may arise as a result of the unrest, both during and after the protests,” South Africa’s National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure, or Natjoints, said in a statement.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa sent Sydney Mufamadi — a former security minister and now a special envoy to conflict zones — to Mozambique for talks on ways to end the unrest, Natjoints said.
Outgoing Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi met with political party leaders earlier on Monday, and they called for dialog to end the crisis.
--With assistance from Colleen Goko and Arijit Ghosh.
(Recasts with opposition leader’s comments from first paragraph,)
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