Anti-riot police in the Angolan city of Luanda were forced to fire teargas and beat up protesters as conducted anti-government demonstrations on Saturday – By Gerald Gekara and news agencies.
Protesters lit bournefires and erected barricades along the roads while others set a national flag ablaze.
The demonstrators burned down a police station in a neighbourhood on the outskirts of the oceanside capital Luanda, a police source said.
The source who asked not to be identified told AFP that the demonstration — demanding the holding of local government elections — “resulted in barricades and acts of vandalism”.
Municipal elections which had been scheduled for this year, have been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Those were acts of rioting, in a flagrant violation of (new pandemic restrictions), which do not allow street gatherings of more than five people,” he said.
“People must also listen to the voice of those who govern.”
Starting Friday night, government announced new restrictions aimed at limiting the spread of the coronavirus pandemic as the country saw a 30 percent surge in Covid-19 cases over the past two weeks.
By Saturday at least 8,829 coronavirus positive cases had been detected with 265 of them fatal.
The police source said some of his colleagues had also been assaulted and wounded during the violent protests.
Some journalists were also assaulted, briefly detained and some forced to delete footage of the protests from their cameras, witnesses said.
Civil society groups called the protests which were also staged to demand jobs and better living conditions.
