According to the statement from the authorities, the agents of the inspection services that acted against street vendors in Largo da Teixeira (Maianga) asked the police for help when they faced "aggressions" and "violent resistance on the part of the vendors".
During the approach, reports the police, "a citizen felt bad, and when she was rescued by the police forces present there, inadvertently, a wave of violence on the part of the popular people, extremely hostile, with great involvement and aggression with blunt and thrown objects, against the police force".
The police statement adds that the agents felt threatened and fired a few dispersal shots, "of which one accidentally and fatally hit a citizen", followed by a riot and vandalism in a mobile police station, eight cars and premises of the Cabinet of supervisory services in that district.
The Police regretted what happened and addressed condolences to the family, adding that an inquiry into police action is underway.
Reports and videos circulated on social networks tell a different version of events, in which a policeman tried to extort and confiscate the products that the woman was trying to sell, but she resisted and was shot in the head.
Revolted, the people caused disturbances and destroyed the mobile police station, while the police resorted to shooting to disperse the crowd.
This Monday, Associação Mãos Livres, an Angolan organization for the defense of human rights, called for the perpetrators of the police shots that killed a street vendor to be held accountable, in a "strike violation of the right to life" by the authorities.
"We have to regret the fact, it is yet another violation of human rights, a serious violation of the right to life, in a context in which the country is experiencing a certain crisis of public policies for job creation and the way that the majority found to survive is to sell on the streets", said this Monday the president of the Associação Mãos Livres à Lusa.
Guilherme Neves recalls that the woman killed in Luanda, last Friday, was not the only one in Angola who died as a result of shootings by police officers.
"We had other citizens who died simply because they chose this path to find survival, so we understand that the country continues to fail in this regard, when those who should protect life do the opposite", he lamented.
The president of the Angolan non-governmental organization also wants the open inquiry "to be conclusive" and that the people involved "are in fact held civilly and criminally responsible".
