Fifty people have been injured.

The truck was carrying 50 people home from a rally addressed by Mozambique’s President Felipe Nyusi ahead of elections next month.

It was coming down the steep hill from Songo, near the Cahora Bassa Dam in the Tete Province.

On the first seven sharp curves it came off the road, throwing the passengers down the hillside.

This is the second delay rally involving Nyusi.

Twelve days ago, ten people died in a crush at a stadium where he addressed a rally in Nampula Province

The incident was caused by presidential security guards locking the stadium gates after Nyusi left. 

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The Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy, known as EISA found more  registration brigades despatched to FRELIMO strongholds.

EISA had eleven observers – seven of them international and four locals – looking at voter registration at 112 centres in 21 municipalities in seven Mozambican provinces.

The observers found that the increase in registration teams since the previous election in 2014 was greater in Frelimo areas  like Gaza than in was in areas like Nampula which is traditionally identified as supporting  the opposition Renamo party.

EISA found this was the mechanism used to increase voter registration in areas known to have a strong dominance of the ruling party.

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Many of the houses in Pemba, up in the north of Mozambique are made of mud bricks which is crumbling in the deluge that has persisted since the cyclone made landfall last Thursday.

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The magazine New Scientist is calling cyclone Kenneth one of the strongest hurricanes  ever to have hit the African mainland.

Heavy rains persist in Nampula and Cabo Delgado making access to some of the the people in distress virtually impossible. 

More than 30 000 s houses have been damaged or destroyed. 200 classrooms and 15 health car centres have been obliterated.

21 000 people are sheltering in 30 accommodation centres

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But the exercise has got the thumbs up from the regional observer mission.

Frelimo’s Filipe Nyusi, the former defence minister, looks set to hold off the former rebel group Renamo led by Afonso Dhlakama, and Daviz Simango, founder of the Mozambique Democratic Party.
South Africa’s foreign affairs chief , Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, who led an observer mission from the Southern African Development Community    declared Mozambicans voted for peace, in a very peaceful, calm and efficient manner.

Opposition parties report cases of ballot stuffing in Sofala and Nampula provinces by Frelimo seeking to extend its 40 year rule of South Africa’s eastern neighbour.

European observers investigating this were denied access to at least one polling station

Counting has started but final results are no expected for a fortnight.

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