DAR ES SALAAM, May 25 (Xinhua) -- Tanzania's ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) on Thursday tasked the government to end alarming killings by armed gangs in the districts of Rufiji, Kibiti and Mkuranga.
Humphrey Polepole, CCM Ideology and Publicity Secretary, said the government should end the killings in order to quash fear and uncertainty among residents in the three neighboring districts.
The chilling killings in the districts began in 2015, having claimed the lives of 31 people including police officers and local politicians, especially members of the governing party.
"The ruling party wants to see the government giving the matter a special attention and see something substantial being done because the continuous brutal loss of lives in the area has been too heavy to bear for the party that is in power," Polepole told a news conference in Dar es Salaam.
He said CCM has been saddened by the killings in the districts and that people were now losing hope with their government.
"We have keenly been following up on the grisly killings in the three districts. It is high time the ruling party intervened to stop losing more innocent people," he said.
According to Polepole, CCM was also concerned with inaction by other political parties on the killings.
Questions still linger on the reasons for the killings as the assailants' motives have remained a mystery.
Police have tightened security in the three districts but they have seemingly failed to stop the killers.
In April, seven police officers were gunned down as they were returning to camp after a daylong patrol.
The Minister for Home Affairs Mwigulu Nchemba told Parliament in Dodoma last week that the government planned to establish a special police zone in Kibiti to arrest the wave of brutal killings in the area.
