UTM youth activist Khamula attacked and left unconscious in Lilongwe

A prominent youth member of the UTM party, Mervin Khamula, was on Monday attacked in Lilongwe’s Area 3 by men believed to be linked to the ruling Malawi Congress Party (MCP), in an assault that has renewed concerns over the safety of political activists in the country.

Khamula was on his way to work at the National Malaria Control Programme, under the Ministry of Health, when he was set upon by the attackers. MCP spokesperson Ezekiel Ching’oma has, however, distanced the party from those responsible.

According to eyewitnesses, the assailants were travelling in a Toyota Fortuner with no registration plates.

They are alleged to have beaten Khamula unconscious before making off with his phone and money. He was rushed to Kamuzu Central Hospital, where he remains under medical care.

News of the attack has reverberated through UTM circles, coming at a time when Khamula has become one of the most vocal voices calling for the party’s withdrawal from its coalition government with MCP under the Tonse Alliance.

Speaking from his hospital bed, Khamula said Monday’s incident was not isolated.

He recounted an earlier episode on May 28, when he and fellow UTM youths were followed by unidentified men in an unregistered Honda Fit shortly after a meeting at the party’s Area 43 headquarters in Lilongwe.

The pursuit, he said, culminated at a set of traffic lights in the city centre, where the vehicle pulled up alongside his own.

“They pointed at us with a pistol, saying, ‘We are watching you,'” Khamula recalled. He and his colleagues, shaken by the encounter, drove directly to his home rather than report the matter, believing it to be, in his words, “just politics at play”.

The alleged intimidation and now the assault come against a backdrop of a rebellion, four years in the making, within sections of the UTM youth wing over the party’s continued presence in the Tonse Alliance.

Since 2022, youth members have pressed the party leadership to withdraw, arguing the alliance serves little purpose and has left UTM members marginalised from government appointments.

Khamula has been among the most persistent advocates of this position, a fact that has inevitably raised questions over whether his activism was a factor in Monday’s attack.

Who carried out the assault, and why, remains unclear, as does any connection to the MCP.

National Police spokesperson Peter Kalaya said he required more time before commenting on the matter, leaving the incident without an official account for now.

Gift Trapence, chairperson of the Human Rights Defenders Coalition, condemned the attack, describing political violence as primitive, and urged police to investigate swiftly and bring those responsible to justice.

The episode has cast fresh light on the deepening tensions over UTM’s place in the Tonse Alliance, and on the risks now facing those within the party who speak out against it.

Follow and Subscribe Nyasa TV :