Police, residents in running battles over KCH land

Police in Lilongwe were on Tuesday and Wednesday were  caught in running battles with residents of Kawale I and Mchesi, who are encroaching on land belonging to Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH), leading to the use of tear gas.

Deputy director responsible for nursing and public relations at KCH, Mabel Chinkhata, confirmed the development, saying the hospital decided to involve the police because there were a lot of people encroaching the land to build houses.

Said Chinkhata:  “We received reports on Tuesday morning of people thronging our land just after the hospital staff houses. When we went to the scene, we discovered that people were dividing the land into plots and we decided to involve the police.”

When a team from The Nation visited the scene on Wednesday morning, there were still running battles between the encroachers and police who threw tear gas canisters to disperse them from the land.

Lilongwe police spokesperson Kingsley Dandaula confirmed the development, saying the reacted to a complaint from KCH and have since agreed to continue patrolling the area to make sure that it remains free of encroachers. n