Customs facilities at Mozambique’s Ressano Garcia Border Post have been “completely destroyed” by looting since election protestors started seizing vehicles on the N4 Maputo Corridor earlier this week, blockading the Kilometre Four (KM4) staging area and setting fire to tyres and trucks.
According to a technology services provider whose name is withheld for safety reasons, “the border is a mess”.
He said since South Africa decided to close the Lebombo Border Post on the other side of Garcia, he was only aware of a car getting through to Mozambique, mostly likely because of bribery.
He said there were about 500 trucks in the staging area earlier today (November 7) but everything had been removed.
This morning, on a transporter’s group for the Maputo Corridor, a member said: “They have entered into KM and are looting what is left. Nothing remains.”
Earlier this week, a transporter based in Komatipoort said tautliners, especially, were beginning to avoid the border because of looters stopping curtain trucks and taking whatever they carried.
As the situation deteriorated, an increasing amount of tautliners began to avoid Ressano, but not all made it in time.
Photos sent through by the Ressano source show tautliners ripped open and goods spilling out.
He said a man was shot dead at KM4 by police this morning.
“He tried to come on to the site because he wanted to loot. They obviously wanted to protect themselves and a shot went off. The day before yesterday (November 5), immigration also shot someone dead.
“I have moved my equipment away from the border but had to leave some stuff behind because it’s fixed. Police are guarding it but I don’t know how long they’ll keep it safe.”
Holed up behind a high-security electric fence on the outskirts of Maputo, the Ressano source said he could hear sporadic gunfire from time to time.
“My wife has just walked past with a go-back” – flight luggage containing the bare essentials such as passports, cash and personal effects.
“Everything’s at the door. We don’t know whether things are going to calm down by tomorrow or go absolutely belly up as it did in 1974,” – the year Mozambique’s independence from colonial rule resulted in a revolution followed by civil war.
“People are angry and all the people that are out on the street are young men between the ages of 10 and 25. No old people are taking part in this. They know what it was like in 1974 when civil war broke out.”
The source said Maputo and Ressano were the only centres of unrest where supporters of Pedamos, the opposition party disputing Frelimo’s October 9 election victory, had gone on the rampage.
This has been confirmed by the Federation of East and Southern African Road Transport Associations, which has established that the Beira Corridor out of Zimbabwe to the port is operationally functioning.
The Ressano source said: “I just spoke to one my directors via Starlink, the only way we can still communicate with one another since internet services have been suspended.
“He’s at the office in Beira and says everything’s okay, the trucks are running and cargo is moving without any issues.”
But in the capital, the situation is completely different.
Earlier today (November 7), looters ransacked a Shoprite complex in Maputo and last night flat residents in certain areas of the city were banging on pots and pans, shouting “revolução, revolução!”
The Ressano source said it was hoped that Venâncio Mondlane, the presidential candidate of Podemos, would bring an end to the week-long protest action he advocated for last week.
“It’s the only way we’re going to survive this,” said the services provider, who added that border stakeholders at Ressano had the means to reopen the border in no time.
“But that can only happen once it’s safe to assess the situation. For now, I’m staying right where I am, behind my electric fence with my Starlink and generator. I hope my wife and I don’t have to flee, but if we have to, we will.”
