Arusha

The first sounds are panic: feet scraping against dust, shouts rising into a confused chorus, then the unmistakable crack of gunfire. A woman in a purple jacket collapses, two others trying to drag her upright as blood darkens her clothes. Scenes like this, captured on a phone in Arusha, were not isolated moments but part of a larger, brutal response to last month’s election unrest in Tanzania.

The demonstrations began on 29 October in Dar es Salaam, driven largely by young people who felt locked out of a political order shaped by one dominant party since independence. Their anger grew …