The automobile plunged right into a crowd in Ntcheu a village in central Malawi.

Lilongwe:

A automobile within the convoy of Malawi’s late vice chairman’s funeral procession rammed into mourners at a village on Sunday night time, killing 4 folks and injuring 12, police stated.

It was a part of a motorcade transporting the physique of Saulos Chilima, who died in a aircraft crash earlier this week.

The automobile plunged right into a crowd in Ntcheu a village in central Malawi.

The automotive, together with different army, police, and civilian automobiles, was headed to Nsipe, Chilima’s house village, 180 kilometres (110 miles) south of the capital Lilongwe, forward of his burial on Monday — which has been declared a public vacation.

“As a result of affect the 2 feminine and two male pedestrians sustained extreme head accidents and a number of fractures and died while receiving therapy” stated a police assertion. 

Police spokesman Peter Kalaya advised AFP 12 extra folks had been injured.

Hundreds of individuals had lined up within the streets to catch a glimpse of the vice chairman’s coffin.

An eyewitness advised AFP that the automobile plunged into the group because it tried to manuever away from the risky crowd.

Felix Njawala, spokesman for Chilima’s social gathering, stated there was some stress alongside the route as mourners demanded the procession cease so they might see the coffin.

“In Dedza, folks blocked the street and demanded to see the coffin” he advised AFP, “solely when the convoy stopped had been folks pacified and the convoy was capable of proceed” including that in some situations folks threw stones on the convoy. 

Whereas he acknowledged that social gathering supporters had questions, he referred to as on them to keep up peace.

The social gathering itself on Thursday demanded an investigation into the aircraft crash.

Chilima died on Monday with eight others when a army plane on an inner flight crashed into Malawi’s Chikangawa Forest in dense fog. 

The wreckage of the aircraft was discovered on Tuesday.

His social gathering, the United Transformation Motion (UTM), allied with President Lazarus Chakwera’s Malawi Congress Occasion (MCP) within the 2020 presidential election, fielding a joint ticket.

Throughout a public viewing of the physique at a stadium in Lilongwe on Sunday afternoon, Chakwera referred to as for an unbiased enquiry into the accident.

“Folks need to know the way the aircraft carrying the Vice President and the others went lacking and crashed. I too need to know what occurred,” he stated.

The aircraft, a Malawi Military Air Wing Dornier 228-202K, disappeared after it didn’t land within the northern metropolis of Mzuzu on account of unhealthy climate and was advised to return to the capital.

(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)