Ex-magistrate Tembenu dies
Renowned retired child justice magistrate Esmie Tembenu died on Friday at Garden City Clinic in South Africa where she was being treated for injuries sustained in a road accident in Nsanje on December 2 2021.
She died after undergoing a procedure on her spinal cord which broke during the accident, according to her son-in-law Henry Haukeya.
The child justice magistrate, who will be remembered for being active even in retirement, was flown to South Africa last Sunday for further treatment.
Haukeya said his mother-in-law suffered a cardiac arrest after the procedure and medics were able to resuscitate her, but she suffered a second attack, which she did not survive.
He said the programme to bring her remains home would be known later.
Tembenu, who was driving the car, was in the company of four others when the accident happened just after Mtowe in Nsanje District.
The team was returning to Blantyre from Nsanje where they were conducting an awareness campaign on 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, organised by UN Women.
A Toyota Belta, registration number NU 418 they were travelling in, overturned three times before sitting on its roof.
According to family members, Tembenu and another person were the ones seriously injured in the accident.
Among many who will mourn Tembenu are television lovers who had fallen in love with her local version of American Judge Judy series which Malawi Broadcasting Corporation introduced under the name The Court.
After retiring, Tembenu established an organisation called Family Rights, Elderly and Child Protection Trust.
