Malawi army soldiers terrorize innocent city residents

Hell broke loose Friday night when a group of muscular soldiers from the Malawi Defence Force (MDF) Moyale Barracks in Mzuzu went on rampage, randomly beating up unarmed civilians and injuring 17 in the process.

The soldiers brutalized guiltless residents of Masasa location in the city in retaliation of their colleague, who was seriously beaten last Tuesday, in a beer brawl, by a gang believed from the area.

According to eye witnesses, the soldiers, purportedly in a drunken state, raided the area around 8.00pm and started beating up residents in their search for the suspected gang.

Over 20 innocent people were injured and several household items destroyed during the night soldiers’ assault on civilians.

Army soldiers
Army soldiers

The eye witness, a primary school teacher within the city, said the soldiers descended on every homestead they just suspected of either belonging to a relation, friend or someone who knew the gang.

“I was in the house with my family when I just heard someone loudly screaming outside my house,” an eye witness told Nyasa Times.

“I went out but I couldn’t see anyone. Then a few minutes later I heard my neighbours discussing that some soldiers from Moyale Barracks were in the area slapping people for reasons they didn’t know either.”

Mzuzu Police Spokesperson Maurice Chapola confirmed that some residents from the area reported the matter and 17 of them were given police reports to access medical treatment at the hospital.

But MDF spokesperson Benson Linje defended the rogue elements who were busy tarnishing the image of the Defence Force through their barbaric bullying of innocent residents.

He said he was not aware of any Moyale Barracks soldier who went out to terrorize ordinary citizens apart from the brutal attack by people on one of their officers.

The dangerously pummeled MDF soldier, whose particulars Linje is yet to put in the public domain, was still receiving medical attention at the Mzuzu Central Hospital as this article was being posted.

The army spokesperson, however, indicated that MDF would institute investigations to learn what really happened on the matter.

Soldiers from Moyale Barracks are reportedly involved in some nasty incidents mainly to do with beer hall scuffles.

Currently, 40-year-old Staff Sergeant Symon Msowoya from the same barracks is answering murder charges in relation to the death of a sex worker, Brenda Chumbi from Balamu village, TA Chakhumbira in Ntcheu district, who was found dead in a room at Thandeka Resthouse in the city.

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