VP mourned in Malawi amid protests over response to plane accident

Monday, in the midst of tight security, Malawians came together to pay their respects to Vice President Saulos Klaus Chilima. His home district had the previous day seen protests against the government’s handling of the plane tragedy that claimed his life along with eight others last week.

At his town of Nsipe in the Ntcheu area, some 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of the capital Lilongwe, Chilima, 51, was laid to rest.

The previous evening, protestors who claimed that after the military plane vanished, authorities did not act swiftly enough to launch a search and rescue operation, blocked the road and pelted the funeral cortege with stones as it approached.

Four people were killed and over a dozen were injured when a car traveling on the major road struck the throng at one point on Sunday night, according to the police.

Attending the burial on Monday, President Lazarus Chakwera did not speak to the grieving despite having asked for an impartial probe into the plane crash and the response.

Leaders in politics and religion urged calm.

Among the officiating clergy was Archbishop Thomas Msusa of the Blantyre Archdiocese. “Let’s remember the Vice President by observing peace and maintaining calm, which he always preached,” the clergyman remarked.

The United Transformation Movement party was led by Chilima. He joined forces with Chakwera to establish the ruling Tonse Alliance, and he accompanied the former as his running mate in the 2020 election.

But before the 2025 presidential election, in which the vice president is anticipated to run against the president, relations between the two had grown acrimonious.

Chilima was detained in 2022 on suspicion of graft. But this month, a court dismissed the accusations against him in response to a notice of discontinuance filed by the director of public prosecutions. Chilima had refuted any misconduct.