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Teacher in for allegedly tampering with PWA grave

Police in Ntchisi have arrested a primary school teacher on suspicion that he tampered with a grave of a person with albinism (PWA) at Chandawira Village, Traditional Authority (T/A) Vuso Jere in the district on September 9 this year.

In an interview on Tuesday, Ntchisi Police Station spokesperson Richard Kaponda said the teacher’s arrest brought the number of suspects to eight.

An artist’s illustration depicting the arrest

He said police arrested the other seven suspects on September 13 this year. He added that all suspects are from T/A Malenga.

The grave of Nyama James, a PWA who was born in 1927 and died in 2018, was found tampered with on September 9 this year.

Central East Region Police spokesperson Harry Namwaza said when officers exhumed the body, they discovered that some parts were missing.

“After exhuming the dead body for further investigations, police established that some body parts which included legs and the right arm were missing,” he said.

However, the body was reburied on Thursday at Chandawira Village, but not the same graveyard where it was exhumed.

Ntchisi district social welfare officer Wilson Milanzi said they supported the reburial by providing funds for a coffin, quarry stone and cement for sealing the new grave.

“The social welfare office and the police also provided vehicles which ferried the body and the deceased’s relations from the district hospital mortuary where the body was being kept after it was exhumed,” he said.

In a separate interview, Association of People with Albinism in Malawi president Ian Simbota said the incident was an indication that the country needs to intensify awareness on the rights of PWAs.

He said: “We need to discover the market and destroy it.

“The question is who is sending these people to get the body parts?”

Recently, there has been a resurgence of attacks of PWAs.

Two weeks ago, police in Limbe, Blantyre, arrested four people suspected of killing a PWA in Kachere Township.

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