Date Of Article: 5/30/2002
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One shot as fire guts Karonga market
By: Joseph Langa
One person was shot and seriously wounded in Karonga town market on Sunday night as police were dispersing people who wanted to loot a few items that were salvaged after a fierce fire gutted the market’s stalls belonging to over 400 vendors. Several other people were also reported to have sustained various injuries in a stampede as police chased them off the burning market. Karonga Town Assembly director of finance Kampusike Chilongo said all the stalls in the market were reduced to ashes. He said the fire was still smouldering by Tuesday morning. Chilongo said people who took advantage of the absence of the owners during the fire looted the items that survived the fire. He said several people injured themselves and a man, identified as Andrew Mwachunda, a landlord who reportedly was saving wares of his tenants, was shot in the chest as the police fired in the air to disperse the looters from the market. Chilongo said the cause of the fire and the total cost of items destroyed and looted are yet to be established by the traders and the police. Karonga Police Officer-In-Charge Clement Juwa confirmed police fired warning shots in the air to disperse looters but said he was not aware a man was hit in the process. “We don’t know that someone was shot because the officers were busy rescuing the items. All I know is that they fired two shots in the air to disperse the looters,” he said. Juwa suspected that the victim might have wounded himself in the stampede along with several others who, he said, were trying to jump the market war during the police intervention. But an eyewitness, Nelly Mwachunda, the wife of the alleged victim, confirmed in a telephone interview from Mzuzu Central Hospital (MCH) that her husband collapsed after being shot in the chest by one of the two shots police fired. Mwachunda said she did not report the incident to police because she was rushing with the collapsed husband to Karonga District Hospital who referred him to MCH where her husband was admitted to. “We were together when he was shot. We had just entered the market to try and rescue some of the items for our tenants, Abraham, Yusuf and Mwanjoka when the police ordered us to go out. I heard two gunshots and then my husband fell to the ground bleeding heavily before he passed out,” she said. MCH matron Maud Kumwenda confirmed in an interview that Mwachunda had bullet wounds, saying the bullet must have pierced right through the chest and came out through the back. She said he was in stable but serious condition.
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