MAPUTO: One Mozambique family is mourning a 16-year-old girl shot dead on Christmas Day; another is devastated over the loss of a 22-year-old son, brother and breadwinner killed on the sidelines of a protest weeks earlier. Both deaths are blamed on security forces, like many of the nearly 280 lives lost in more than two months of violence in Mozambique sparked by a disputed election, according to a toll by a local NGO.

Many of the dead are young people who led waves of protests after initial results on October 24 announced the winner was Daniel Chapo of the Frelimo party, in power for half a century.

Rights groups say security forces used live bullets against the protesters, many of them followers of opposition leader Venancio Mondlane, who rejects the results which he says were rigged.

But some victims just got caught up inadvertently in the tensions. Yolanda Jose Luis, 16, was killed in a minibus with eight relatives going to a family Christmas gathering in the city of Chimoio, about 770 kilometers (480 miles) north of the capital Maputo, her brother told AFP.

Their mother, also in the vehicle, said the driver had not noticed police calling him to pull over, Ronaldo Jose Luis, 22, said. "The police followed the minibus and when it reached a curve, they opened fire. It was at that moment that my sister was hit.”

The killing was listed by NGO Plataforma Decide as among 176 that occurred in the week after the Constitutional Council on December 23 confirmed Chapo’s victory. The authorities have not issued a recent death toll but accuse crowds of looting and arson. Police have also died in the unrest since the October 9 vote, outgoing President Filipe Nyusi has said. "I can’t come to terms with Yolanda’s sudden absence,” said Jose Luis, adding his sister was excited to start her last year of school.

"But, in the sadness, I’m trying to contain myself because I need the strength to work to help with the expenses at home,” the air-conditioning technician said. Ana Madivage was called to a street corner in Maputo’s Matola area on October 25 where a demonstration had taken place and found her 22-year-old son on the ground, covered in a sarong-type cloth called a capulana. "I fell where he was, I screamed for help. A group of ladies arrived and took me out,” the 49-year-old told AFP, placing flowers at the grave of Silvio Jose Jeremias.

She said witnesses had reported seeing two plain clothes policemen open fire as Jose Jeremias and his colleagues were having a beer. He worked as a sales agent at a petrol station to support his mother, two sisters and two-year-old daughter. "He was a very present brother and above all he was like a father,” said Shelcia Jose Jeremias, 19. "We told him all our problems. He really encouraged us to go to school.”

Pedro Guambe, 26, also lost his 24-year-old brother Pascoal in a December 10 shooting.

"He was shot in the back and losing a lot of blood,” he said. "If I had arrived in time, perhaps he would not have lost so much blood.” According to witnesses, the shooter opened fire from a white SUV-type vehicle that is associated with a special police unit, he said. — AFP