HRDC demands justice for slain Poly student Blessings Nyondo: Warns of vigil at Police

January 10, 2021 Watipaso Mzungu - Nyasa Times 16 Comments

The Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) has demanded immediate arrest and prosecution of the police officers who shot a Polytechnic student, Blessings Nyondo, on December 31 2020.

Trapence: HRDC will hold vigil at police

Nyondo has sadly succumbed to bullets wounds.

He was shot multiple times around Kwacha roundabout in Blantyre on the night of the 31st of December 2020 allegedly by a police officer assigned to the public broadcaster – Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC).

HRDC chairperson Gift Trapence, in a statementsays it is unbelievable, outright insensitive, and incoherent of the Malawi Police Service to feed the nation a narrative that the late Blessings was a robbery suspect.

Trapence claims they have it on good authority that Blessings  Nyondo was a victim of the alleged robbery and was just seeking refuge in the MBC vehicle.

“The official Malawi Police Service statement on circumstances surrounding the unwarranted and reckless shooting of Blessings does not only contradicts numerous testimonies from people who know Blessings but also how the Malawi Police Service eventually handled Blessings after the shooting.

“Contrary to Malawi Police Standard Operating Procedures for robbery suspects, the police never arrested Blessings to the best of our knowledge, and he was not under any guard during his admission at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital,” he emphasizes.

Trapence adds that the Malawi Police Service owe Malawians an explanation as to why it was possible that a suspect who had attempted to snatch a gun from a police officer was not placed under arrest and was just dumped at the hospital.

He warns that, as human rights defenders, they will not sit back and watch the Malawi Police Service militate against its very own mandate, which is to protect lives and property.

“The constitution of the Republic of Malawi provides for the right to life in section 16(1) and that such life shall not be arbitrarily deprived. All forms of arbitrary deprivation of life by any person, including law enforcement agents, are unacceptable in Malawi.”

HRDC demand that the Malawi Police Service do its job – immediately arrest, dully charge, and fiercely prosecute the suspect and his accomplices.

Trapence said at the expiry of five working days, if arrests are not made, HRDC  will have no choice but to mobilize Malawians for vigil at the Southern Region Police Headquarters.

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16 replies on “HRDC demands justice for slain Poly student Blessings Nyondo: Warns of vigil at Police”

  2. police people are animals dont have humility & most are savages in acting i don’t know what they are taught but we see most of them as brainwashed

  5. Well done Police for killing this tumbuka robber Nyondo. Trapence usachuluke nzeru wamva!!! You were not there when Nyondo banged at the MBC vehicle in the middle of the night.

  10. Law enforcement officers always work in very dangerous situations where they have to make split second decisions that can easily end up in life or death.

    This incident happened at night what evidence does hrdc have that would convince Malawians that Blessings was a victim of a robbery and that he was just seeking refuge in the MBC vehicle?

    Someone looking for refuge how on earth did he end up wrestling with the MBC security guard for a gun?

    Let us take emotions out of this and try to figure out how this student end up dead after being shot at the MBC premises……threats of holding vigils will not help anyone but just encourage destruction of government property as we have seen in many demonstrations before…

    1. Was he armed? We understand there was another person, a security officer who was also armed in the vehicle. If he was a robber, I don’t think he would have dared a those two knowing that they were armed. Stop shielding these heartless officers. They should face the law.

    2. The biggest mistake Blessings Blessings did here was to wrestle for a gun with the police officer. If Blessings was really innocent, he would have just surrendered humbly to police and they could not have fired him. My understanding is that if someone wrestles for your your weapon, it means that he wants to use it to kill you and you can not give in to such people, you rather kill them and explain yourself later what happened.

  11. that doesn’t make sense either, what was he doing outside his residential area in the middle of night? why did he broke a window and jump into a car that didn’t belong to him in the middle of night?

    count me out of those stupid vigils, i don’t support vagabonding.

  12. You can only mobilise a 100 people Mr Trapence so be careful! Otherwise you are breaking the law, spreading the virus further and therby potentially killing more people and can be arrested for that.

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