The vehicle crashed into a crowd in Ntcheu, a village in central Malawi.
Lilongwe:
A vehicle in the funeral procession of Malawi’s late vice president crashed into mourners in a village on Sunday night, killing four people and injuring 12, police said.
He was part of a motorcade transporting the body of Saulos Chilima, who died in a plane crash earlier this week.
The vehicle crashed into a crowd in Ntcheu, a village in central Malawi.
The car, along with other military, police and civilian vehicles, was heading to Nsipe, Chilima’s home village, 180 kilometers (110 miles) south of the capital Lilongwe, ahead of his burial on Monday – which was declared a public holiday . .
“Due to the impact, two women and two men suffered serious head injuries and multiple fractures and died while receiving treatment,” a police statement said.
Police spokesman Peter Kalaya told AFP that 12 more people were injured.
Thousands of people lined the streets to see the vice president’s coffin.
An eyewitness told AFP that the vehicle plunged into the group as it tried to move away from the volatile crowd.
Felix Njawala, Chilima party spokesman, said there was some tension along the route as mourners demanded the procession stop so they could see the coffin.
“In Dedza, people blocked the road and demanded to see the coffin,” he told AFP, “only when the convoy stopped were people pacified and the convoy could continue,” adding that in some cases people threw stones at the convoy.
While acknowledging that party supporters had doubts, he appealed to them to maintain peace.
The party itself demanded on Thursday an investigation into the plane crash.
Chilima died on Monday along with eight other people when a military plane on an internal flight crashed in the Chikangawa forest, in Malawi, in dense fog.
The wreckage of the plane was found on Tuesday.
His party, the United Transformation Movement (UTM), allied with President Lazarus Chakwera’s Malawi Congress Party (MCP) in the 2020 presidential election, running a joint candidacy.
During a public viewing of the body at a stadium in Lilongwe on Sunday afternoon, Chakwera called for an independent inquiry into the accident.
“People want to know how the plane carrying the vice president and others disappeared and crashed. I also want to know what happened,” he said.
The plane, a Malawi Army Air Wing Dornier 228-202K, went missing after failing to land in the northern town of Mzuzu due to bad weather and was told to return to the capital.
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