A 29-year-old man identified as Funsilani Wizilamu, who hailed from Chibweza village in the area of Senior Chief Dzoole in Dowa District, drowned in the Kasangadzi river where he went to wash clothes.
The incident occurred yesterday, 13th of October 2024, at around noon.
Wizilamu was staying together with Billiat Lackson and both of them were tricycle operators at Mponela Trading Centre.
According to Mponela Police PRO Macpatson Msadala, on 10th October, Wizilamu went to Kasangazi River to wash clothes while his friends went to the Mponela trading centre for their usual business.
“Upon returning home in the evening, Billiat did not find Wizilamu home. On October 13th, 2024, after seeing that Wizilamu was not reporting back from the river, he started searching for him from his friends, including his home village, but to no avail.
“At around noon hours, one of the community members who went to Kasangadzi River to bath found Wizilamu floating in the river, and community members were notified about this incident,” he explained.
Msadala added that the matter was reported to Mponela Police Station, and officers from the above formation visited the scene together with medical personnel from Mponela Rural Hospital.
“Postmortem was conducted which revealed that that cause of death was due to suffocation secondary to drowning,” he explained.
Police in Mponela, hence, are advising all people to avoid going alone to such places to avoid similar deaths.
