Good morning! The Chanzo is here with a rundown of major news stories reported in Tanzania on October 01, 2025.
Dar Rapid Transit Buses Attacked With Stones by Angry Mob After Series of Failures
Several rapid transit buses were attacked by mobs of frustrated passengers following a series of unresolved challenges due to shortages of buses. The incident occurred at around 8 p.m. on October 1, 2025, after a number of passengers were trying to board the few available buses.
“Just kill us, just kill us,” hundreds of passengers shouted at Gerezani bus station as police tried to disperse the crowd by firing warning shots into the air.
The unrest spread to other stations, including Magomeni Mapipa and Kagera, where drivers abandoned their vehicles to escape the angry mob.
The incident occurred only hours after Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner Albert Chalamila visited Kimara and other routes to apologize to frustrated customers of what many now see as a failing transportation project.
Chalamila’s intervention followed a week of spontaneous protests on the buses, where overcrowded passengers, often hanging from doors, windows, and even roofs, chanted political slogans. Some shouted, “We don’t want CCM,” while others sang in support of jailed opposition leader Tundu Lissu.
Read the full article here.
Online Activists Bailed as Fears of the Digital Clampdown Intensify Ahead of Tanzania’s 2025 Polls
Two online activists in Tanzania, Innocent Paul Chuwa and Frida Mikoroti, were released on bail on Wednesday after a week-long detention that human rights groups have condemned as a violation of legal procedure.
Their arrests, believed to be linked to online calls for peaceful protests, come amid a sweeping government crackdown on digital expression and political dissent ahead of the country’s general election on October 29, 2025.
A coalition of legal and human rights organiations, including the Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition (THRDC), secured the activists’ release.
“We are ready to face the prosecutors in court to defend our clients and the freedom of expression,” stated Paul Kisabo, an advocate from THRDC. He highlighted that holding his clients for more than a week without charge was a “clear violation of the Criminal Procedures Act,” which requires a suspect to be brought before a court within 24 hours.
Read the article here.
Where Children Are No Longer Their Parents’
Forget about Musa Lendo and his ruler complex. Some of the letters I receive are so painful and I don’t know what to do about them. Take this one for example:
Dear Makengeza, the man with the squint,
I am writing to you in English in the vain hope that someone among the educated elite, some educationalists who are still true to their profession, some members of the Ministries responsible for our children will take heed. I am at my wit’s end as a parent.
I strongly believe that I have a role as a parent with my children but, starting in Standard Four, I lose my child every second year. Yes. When she was just nine, nine years old, she had to go to school at six o’clock in the morning and left school at 8:00 at night. These are hours that not even adults should have to endure. It means she had to get up at 5:00 or even earlier and by the time she returned home and had something to eat and did her homework it was already ten o’clock at least.
So, at the very most, if she fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow and slept until forced to wake up and sleepwalk to wash and have some porridge, she would sleep seven hours. But as anyone who has overworked knows, you don’t sleep immediately when you are mentally tired. Read the full article here.
This is it for today, and we hope you enjoyed our briefing. Please consider subscribing to our newsletter (see left), following us on X (Twitter) (here), or you can support us (here). And if you have any questions or comments, please drop a word to our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.
