Lashes or fire, tear gas, humiliations: in several African countries, the security forces responsible for enforcing drastic measures to fight against the coronavirus are increasing the number of slippages, forcing the authorities to react.
On the poorest continent on the planet, confinements, movement restrictions and even barrier gestures against the virus are extremely difficult to apply in megacities or overcrowded neighborhoods whose populations survive day to day.
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The same scenes of disobedience are repeated everywhere in Africa, where more than 5,300 cases, including 170 fatal, have been officially recorded.
Compact queues are forming in front of the supermarkets, in violation of the rules of social distancing. Small, non-essential shops, notably those selling alcohol, remain open despite the bans. Often, the muscular reactions of the security forces, with traditions of repression sometimes well entrenched, resemble each other, in the name of protecting the health of citizens.
In Uganda, police admitted on Friday that they had shot and wounded two men who they believed were trying to oppose travel restrictions. The day before, police and soldiers had beaten up fruit sellers and market customers gathered in the public square. These reactions outraged Trade Minister Amelia Kyambadde, who called on the police to "refrain from hitting". "Please explain to them (the instructions) on community radios ," she pleaded. The military was forced to apologize.
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In Kenya, where a curfew is in effect, the Inspector General of Police called for an investigation into the death of a 13-year-old boy killed by gunshots allegedly fired by police in a slum from Nairobi. On Friday, in the port city of Mombasa (east), hundreds of people waiting for a ferry were dispersed from tear gas, even before the curfew came into effect. Riot police attacked people with lashes. "It is unjustified and inappropriate (...) Why inflict such atrocities?" reacted the governor of Mombasa, Hassan Joho.
In Africa, "it seems that the only known way of the authorities to manage the population is violence and humiliation," denounced Shenilla Mohamed, of Amnesty International. Mausi Segun, Africa director of the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW), called on governments to "quickly investigate" the abuses of the security forces and to "punish" the culprits.
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In South Africa, where a total confinement of three weeks has been imposed since Friday, the police have been seized of three cases in which the police are accused of having killed a civilian. On Monday, the country's president, Cyril Ramaphosa, called to order the security forces which, he said, "must always act within the framework of the law" . Defense Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula condemned the soldiers' "abuses" .
Videos of citizens forced by bullying police or soldiers to bend circulate on social networks in South Africa or Senegal.
"Psychosis"
Police were also filmed with batons to passers-by to enforce the curfew in this West African country. The local police recognized "excessive intervention" which was "punished with all the necessary rigor" . However, she did not specify who was sanctioned or how.
Same observation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The images of a policeman protected by a sanitary mask beating with a baton a man on the ground, who screams in pain, provoked anger. Especially since the scene takes place before the eyes of the Kinshasa police chief, Sylvano Kasongo.
"The fight against the spread of # COVID19 (...) must not be done at the expense of human rights , " warned the Canadian Ambassador to the DRC, Nicolas Simard. An official decree demanded that the police "enforce the measures taken, firmly (...) and respect the dignity of the human person".
In Côte d'Ivoire, finally, around 450 people were arrested for non-compliance with the curfew. They "are subject to caning," denounced the Ivorian Movement for Human Rights (MIDH). "This is unacceptable and adds to the psychosis created by the coronavirus."
