Madagascar police open fire on crowd trying to break into station to kill four kidnapping suspects

Fourteen people lost their lives in Madagascar when the police opened fire on a mob that attempted to break into their station to kill four kidnapping suspects.

The suspects were accused of kidnapping an albino child for ritual purposes. Apart from the people killed, about 28 others were reportedly injured in the incident.

According to Razafintsiandraofa, an MP for the Ikongo district, about 80 kilometres southeast of the capital Antananarivo, the albino child was kidnapped last week.

An angry mob of about 500, armed with machetes and knives, stormed the local police station in Ikongo, calling for the release of the four suspects arrested on Sunday, August 28, to deal with them.

A police officer told AFP that the protesters tried to break into the station.

“There were negotiations, the villagers insisted,” the officer said on the phone, as police fired smoke grenades and shots into the air in an attempt to disperse the crowd.

“They kept pushing their way through… We had no choice but to defend ourselves,” the police officer said.

Local doctor Tango Oscar Toky said “nine people died on the spot” and another five died later in the hospital.

Nine of the injured are in critical condition, he said.

“The gendarmes … fired at the crowd,” local lawmaker Jean-Brunelle Razafintsiandraofa in the southeastern city of Ikongo told AFP.

Some sub-Saharan African countries have faced a spate of attacks on people with albinism, whose body parts can be sold for thousands of dollars for ritual purposes.