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Families raise K35 000 for July 20 tombstones

 

Church and Society Programme of the CCAP Livingstonia Synod has decried unfulfilled promises to construct tombstones for victims of the July 20 2011 anti-government protests.

In an interview, the programme’s executive director Moses Mkandawire appealed to organisations and other well-wishers to help bereaved families raise almost K2 million for the promised memorial at Zolozolo gravesite in Mzuzu to take shape.

Some of the ‘abandoned’ graves at Zolozolo

About 20 people were killed during the nationwide demonstration against dictatorial tendencies and bad economic policies of former president Bingu wa Mutharika. However, but 10 of them who were gunned down in Mzuzu lie in unmarked graves.

Mkandawire envisaged this year’s memorial service to mark the unveiling of the tombstone.

“People have talked the talk long enough. It is time to take action. The people who died in the protests deserve a decent resting place,” he said in an interview yesterday.

So far, families of the deceased have raised K36 500 for feeding builders of the tombstones.

According to their spokesperson Isaac Banda, many organisations and politicians, including former president Joyce Banda, promised to honour the dead by building tombstones.

He accused them of using annual memorials to gain political mileage. n

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