Ethiopian ‘illegal immigrant’ found dead in Malawi resthouse: Police rule out foul play
An Ethiopian national believed to have illegally entered the country was found dead in a rest house in the northern city of Mzuzu . Wednesday morning.
Mzuzu Police spokesperson Maurice Chapola said the deceased whose particulars could not be verified, had booked a room at Sungabana rest house at Chibanja township in Mzuzu.
A rest house cleaner told Nyasa Times that the deceased booked a room Tuesday night alongside other two Ethiopians but the two others left the room soon after he died and are now at large.
He was discovered when some cleaners wanted to clean the room.
“We initially thought they were still sleeping when we knocked at the door for several times. But we came suspicious when we later found their key at the reception,” said the cleaner.
The cleaner said when they peeped through the keyhole they discovered the deceased lying on the bed but were puzzled about the whereabouts of the two others.
“When we knocked for several times and found that he was not responding, we broke the door and discovered that he was dead and we reported the matter to police.”
Police spokesman ruled out any foul play. He suspects the man has died due to hunger hence no arrests have been made so far.
A postmortem had not been conducted at the time of the interview with the police spokesman.
But he says the police might arrest the two others if found, for illegal entry . There is a strong possibility that rest house owners would face the law for habouring illegal immigrants.
“We have launched an investigation into how the rest house welcomed the foreigners and the whereabouts of the two escapees,” said Chapola while warning rest house owners against habouring illegal immigrants.
Sungabana rest house is one of the cheapest accommodation facilities in Mzuzu city and it is mostly occupied by commercial sex workers. This is the first time for such kind of incident to happen at the rest house since it came into operation.
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