Maputo - At least 12 people have died in strange circumstances in a prison cell in northern Mozambique, media reports said Tuesday.

The public channel TVM said there was no concrete explanation for the deaths of the inmates at the prison in the Mongincual district of Nampula province. It was also not clear why they were being held at the facility.

The policemen were killed when trying to pacify the mob that attacked red cross volunteers whom they accused of deliberately spreading cholera.

The inmates bodies were taken to the provincial capital, Nampula city, to the local hospital morgue, according to reports.

There was speculation that the deaths could be linked to the killing by a mob recently in the district of two police officers.

The incident also drew comparisons with the death of hundreds of protesters, most of them opposition supporters, in a jail in the town of Montepuez in the northern province of Cabo Delgado in 1999. (dpa)