Tanzania inquiry confirms 518 deaths after election
Tanzania’s government has for the first time acknowledged the scale of lives lost in the chaos that followed last year’s general election, with an official inquiry confirming 518 people died from unnatural causes, 197 of them shot dead. More than 2,000 others were injured.
The numbers, presented by commission chairman Mohamed Chande Othman, offer the clearest picture yet of a crisis that shook one of Africa’s most outwardly stable nations. Among the dead were 21 children and 16 security officers. Othman cautioned that the true toll could be even higher, as some victims were buried without the authorities being notified.
What the report does not do is assign blame. Othman stopped short of naming who was responsible for the killings, instead recommending further investigations, a gap that opposition figures were quick to seize upon.
The main opposition party, Chadema, wasted no time dismissing the findings, calling the report a “cover-up” and “an attempt to whitewash the regime’s crimes.” The party had already questioned the inquiry’s credibility from the outset, arguing it “cannot be independent or impartial, especially in a situation where the government is the primary suspect in the crimes being investigated.”
The violence erupted after President Samia Suluhu Hassan was declared winner of the October 29 poll with 98% of the vote, a result the opposition described as a “mockery” of democracy, particularly after her two main challengers were barred from the race. Tundu Lissu remains in detention on treason charges he denies, while Luhaga Mpina’s candidacy was thrown out on technical grounds.
At the time, President Samia blamed foreigners for the unrest, framing it as a coordinated plot to destabilise her government. She has maintained that position. Receiving the commission’s report, she said: “We have learnt. The commission has told us that all the violence was planned, coordinated, financed and executed by people who were trained and given equipment for committing crimes.” She added that those responsible sought “to create a leadership vacuum” and make Tanzania “ungovernable.”
She also defended the security forces, saying their actions prevented the country from sliding into anarchy, even as BBC-verified footage from the period showed heavily armed police firing toward crowds of protesters.
International observers had already raised red flags before the violence reached its peak. Both the African Union and the southern Africa bloc SADC said the election fell short of democratic standards, citing a lack of transparency.
The commission addressed opposition claims of mass graves, stating they “could not be substantiated” and alleging that some images had been manipulated using artificial intelligence, a claim unlikely to satisfy those who lost relatives in the unrest.
On the question of what drove people onto the streets, the inquiry pointed to economic frustration, unemployment, demands for political reform and what it described as a “lack of patriotism”, framing that critics argue conveniently shifts focus away from state conduct and onto the protesters themselves.
President Samia announced the formation of a criminal investigation body to examine offences connected to the unrest, including looting, infrastructure damage and deaths, with a specific mandate to look into the deaths of children, missing bodies, and allegations of abductions.
The commission also put forward several recommendations: free medical care and psychosocial support for survivors, a national day of mourning, a new constitution by 2028 ahead of the next election, and a reconciliation commission.
Whether any of it will satisfy a deeply divided nation, where the young protesters who led the demonstrations say they were simply tired of six decades of one-party dominance, remains an open and uncomfortable question.
Source: BBC
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