Four people were crushed to death and twelve injured Sunday evening in a road accident that occurred while the funeral convoy of Vice President Saulos Chilima passed through a village in Malawi, according to police.
The body of Saulos Chilima, killed in a plane crash last week, was being transported to his home village of Nsipe, 180 km south of the capital Lilongwe, where his funeral is to take place on Monday, decreed public holiday. Thousands of onlookers gathered along the route to watch the hearse pass, escorted by police and army cars and other civilian vehicles.
An eyewitness said a vehicle, while maneuvering to escape the encroaching crowd, ran over a group of people in the village of Ntcheu, in the center of the country. “Due to the impact, two women and two men suffered serious head injuries and multiple fractures and died while being treated,” police said in a statement. A police spokesman, Peter Kalaya, said the accident also left 12 people injured.
A spokesman for Saulos Chilima’s party, Felix Njawala, said sporadic violence occurred along the route. “In Dezda, people blocked the road and asked to see the coffin,” he said. “It was only when the convoy stopped that people calmed down and it was able to continue on its way.” He added that the funeral procession was also stone-thrown in places.
Saulos Chilima and eight others died on June 10 in the crash of a military plane in the northeast of the country. His party, the United Movement for Transformation (UTM), an ally of President Lazarus Chakwera’s Congress Party (MCP), called for an investigation into the circumstances of the tragedy.
