17A vehicle in the convoy of Malawi’s late Vice President Saulos Chilima’s funeral procession tragically rammed into mourners on Sunday night, resulting in the deaths of four people and injuring 12 others, according to police reports.
The accident occurred in Ntcheu, a village in central Malawi, as the motorcade transported the body of Chilima, who had died in a plane crash last week. The convoy, which included military, police, and civilian vehicles, was en route to Nsipe, Chilima’s home village, 180 kilometers south of the capital Lilongwe, ahead of his burial on Monday, which had been declared a public holiday.
“Due to the impact, two female and two male pedestrians sustained severe head injuries and multiple fractures and died while receiving treatment,” stated a police report. Police spokesman Peter Kalaya confirmed to AFP that 12 additional people were injured in the incident.
Eyewitnesses described the vehicle plunging into the crowd as it attempted to maneuver away from the volatile group of mourners who had lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the vice president’s coffin.
Felix Njawala, spokesman for Chilima’s party, recounted that tension along the route had caused people to block the road and demand that the procession stop to allow them to see the coffin. In some areas, mourners even threw stones at the convoy.
Chilima’s party, the United Transformation Movement (UTM), which had allied with President Lazarus Chakwera’s Malawi Congress Party (MCP) in the 2020 presidential election, called for an investigation into the plane crash. The crash occurred on Monday when a military aircraft on an internal flight crashed into Malawi’s Chikangawa Forest in dense fog, killing Chilima and eight others. The wreckage was discovered on Tuesday.
During a public viewing of Chilima’s body at a stadium in Lilongwe on Sunday afternoon, President Chakwera called for an independent inquiry into the accident. “People want to know how the plane carrying the Vice President and the others went missing and crashed. I too want to know what happened,” he said.
The aircraft, a Malawi Army Air Wing Dornier 228-202K, had disappeared after it failed to land in the northern city of Mzuzu due to bad weather and was instructed to return to the capital.
- Additional report courtesy of AFP
Eighteen-Eleven Media