Five people are dead, including three police officers, after a gun battle between officers and an armed man near the French Embassy in Dar es Salaam. It was not immediately clear whether the shootout in the heavily guarded diplomatic area was a terror attack.
Liberatus Sabas, Tanzania’s head of police operations, said the gunman attacked two police officers, took their guns and then “began shooting sporadically towards the French Embassy.”
The gunman killed a third officer and an embassy security guard before being cornered and killed while holed up in a guardhouse at the embassy’s gate.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan said on Twitter that the attacker had been “neutralized” and “calm has returned”.
The confrontation occurred shortly after the president concluded a speech to security officials in another part of the city, Tanzania’s commercial hub.
“I send my condolences to the police service and the families of three policemen, and one officer of the SGA security company, who lost their lives after an armed person attacked them in the Salenda area of Dar es Salaam,” President Hassan said.
The police commissioner also tweeted that six people were injured in addition to the four who were killed.
Inspector-General of Police Simon Sirro said in an interview aired on local television that police were trying to identify the attacker. While the motive was not yet known, Sirro suggested the attack could be related to Tanzania’s role in neighboring Mozambique, where it sent troops this month to help fight Islamist insurgents as part of a regional security force.
“There are problems, our soldiers are there,” Sirro said of Mozambique.
Tanzanian television aired footage showing police officers in bullet-proof vests who appeared to be wrapping a dead body outside the embassy in white material to remove it from the scene.
