Blantyre | Monday
TWO Malawians have been confirmed dead while two others are battling for their lives following three days of rioting and police shootings in the northern border district of Chitipa.
The dead are said to be a 10-year-old girl and a man.
Seventeen other people, including two MPs from the opposition Alliance for Democracy, have been arrested and charged with conduct likely to cause breach of peace and theft, according to the police.
Topsy Munthali, a medical officer at Chitipa District Hospital, told Pana Sunday the hospital received three casualties – all with gunshot wounds.
One of them, an 18-year-old man, arrived at the hospital already dead after police bullets had ripped through his chest. Munthali said the other young man, who works for the state-run Malawi Broadcasting Corporation, was shot in the head but he was in stable condition.
Home affairs minister Monjeza Maluza defended the government’s action, saying the police had to stop the people from looting. He said after being dispersed the demonstrators went on the rampage, looting five government offices.
Police spokesman Oliver Soko said police had to break up the demonstration because it was not sanctioned by police as the law requires.
But Manifesto Kayira, one of the two AFORD MPs who have been arrested, said the demonstrators had given the police enough notice.
Kayira and another AFORD legislator, Webster Kameme, and AFORD’s northern region organising secretary, Cheston Kayira, were on Sunday moved from the northern city of Mzuzu to police headquarters in the capital, Lilongwe.
Bupe Nangogo Mvula, AFORD’s regional treasurer, said a group of politicians and church leaders have marched to the police to present a petition questioning why police had to use live ammunition to break up what they called a peaceful protest.
Trouble began Friday when 5_000 people marched to the District Commissioner’s office to present a petition to President Bakili Muluzi showing their displeasure at the delay in constructing the 130-km road from Chitipa to the other border district of Karonga.
Chitipa, one of the poorest districts in the country which borders both Tanzania and Zambia, is not easily accessible by road and is effectively cut off from economic activities with the rest of the country due to its poor infrastructure.
All political parties, including Malawi’s ruling United Democratic Front party, promised in their 1994 campaigns that they would upgrade the Chitipa road, but nothing has happened since. – Pana