In the weeks after October 29, 2025, families across Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Mbeya, and Arusha did what families do when institutions fail them: they went looking. To hospitals. To police stations. To neighbours. Some, according to testimony gathered by investigators, buried clothing in place of bodies because the bodies had not come home. Twenty-four victims remain unidentified. Three bodies are still at Muhimbili National Hospital, pending DNA analysis.
On April 23, 2026 — nearly six months after Tanzania’s most violent election in modern history — the government-appointed commission released its findings to President Samia Suluhu Hassan at State House in Dar es Salaam. The headline number, delivered by Retired Chief Justice Mohamed Chande Othman with a qualifier that carried more weight than the statistic itself, was 518 dead.
“These figures,” Othman said, “are not final and conclusive.”
Election Day and the Days That Followed
Tanzania went to the polls on October 29, 2025, in a contest shaped by its absences. Chadema leader Tundu Lissu spent the campaign period in court, on trial for treason. ACT-Wazalendo’s presidential candidate Luhagha Mpina was disqualified on technicalities. The social media platform X had been banned in June 2025. An internet blackout descended on election day and lasted until November 3.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan, Tanzania’s first female president, was declared the winner with 98% of the vote — in a country with a voting-age population of approximately 35 million, with a declared turnout of nearly 33 million. The African Union said the election did not comply with standards for democratic elections.
Young people took to the streets in Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Mbeya, Arusha, Geita, and Dodoma. Security forces were deployed. Tear gas, then — according to multiple verified reports from the BBC, CNN, and the Centre for Information Resilience — live ammunition. By evening, a citywide curfew was imposed. The streets fell quiet in ways that silence rarely does.
The Commission’s Count
The report, based on interviews with 80 doctors and specialists, postmortem examinations, and hospital records from across the country, established 518 deaths — 490 male, 28 female, including 21 children. Of these, 505 were civilians. Sixteen were members of the security forces. Forensic analysis attributed 197 deaths to gunshot wounds. By March 31, 2026, 2,390 people had received treatment for injuries — 2,270 civilians and 120 security personnel. Of these, 2,171 sustained minor injuries and were discharged.
The geographic concentration of deaths follows the geography of protest: Dar es Salaam recorded 182 deaths; Mwanza, 90; Mbeya, 80; Arusha, 53.
The commission’s chairman acknowledged that the toll could be higher. Opposition parties and religious groups estimate thousands of deaths. Western diplomatic sources have put the figure between 1,000 and 2,000. The Centre for Information Resilience, in a January 2026 report, identified what it described as “possible mass graves through satellite imagery.” The commission said such reports could not be substantiated.
Critically, the commission’s report did not assign individual or institutional responsibility for the killings.
A Country Changed
Tanzania had, for decades, defined itself against its neighbours’ crises — Rwanda’s genocide, Kenya’s 2007 post-election violence, eastern Congo’s endless conflict. That self-definition ended on election night 2025. The Economist described the crackdown as Tanzania’s “Tiananmen Square moment.” The Catholic Church in Tanzania condemned the killings. The UN’s human rights office expressed grave concern.
President Hassan, while offering condolences at the opening of parliament, continued to assert that the protests were pre-planned, coordinated by external actors. The commission echoed parts of that framing. Opposition parties called the commission’s report a whitewash.
Who fired. Who ordered. Who bore ultimate responsibility. These remain unanswered, the questions that 518 death certificates — and perhaps many more — demand someone eventually answer.
The numbers the commission presented were not final. But for 518 families, the waiting is.
