Maputo — Residents of the locality of Mucoroge, in Moma district, in the northern Mozambican province of Nampula, have told provincial governor Felismino Tocoli to his face that they were quite correct to destroy the local health centre, because it was "spreading cholera".

About 300 people attacked the health centre on 12 February, destroying medical equipment, smashing the solar panels that provided, electricity, and stealing the centre's radio, and beds, mattresses and sheets.

In clashes between the police and the rioters, one of the ringleaders was shot dead, and a second is hospitalised in Moma town, with a serious bullet wound to his leg.

According to a report in the Beira daily paper "Diario de Mocambique", Tocoli visited Mucoroge on Saturday, and met with the local population. They showed no repentance for destroying a health centre that caters for the needs of 24,000 people.

One of the residents cited by the paper declared "we destroyed all the equipment in the hospital because we are tired of dying of cholera". But he admitted that currently there is no cholera at all in Moma district - destroying the health centre was thus a pre-emptive move - it was "the only method we found to prevent an outbreak of cholera this year in the region".

Tocoli said he had "come to hear from you what you think about the hospital that has now been destroyed. I didn't come to decide anything, we want to hear some advice from you, about what best to do with the hospital".

To journalists, however, Tocoli was considerably more forthright, declaring "we condemn the vandalism in Mucoroge, and the police must act in accordance with the law to restore order".

Reporters were able to interview the wounded rioter, a man known only as "Folgado", on his hospital bed. He seemed to have no problem about accepting medical assistance in Moma town from the same national health service he had attacked in Mucoroge.

He told the journalists he had no regrets, and boasted that he was at the head of the riot. He too said the destruction was "a preventive measure" to prevent an outbreak of cholera in the district.

He claimed that health activists carry "blue flasks" which contain cholera, and in the health centre "we found two blue flasks of cholera and these would have been distributed to activists".

"Diario de Mocambique" carries a photograph of one of these "blue flasks" - which is in fact a bottle of the water purifier sold under the commercial name "certeza" ("certainty"), easily available in shops throughout the country, and advertised on national television.