GOVT DENIES REPORT THAT A MAN IN MZIMBA HAS DIED OF HUNGER

Government has quashed a story carried by Daily Times of January 13, 2016 titled “Man Dies of Hunger” in Mzimba, saying the story is false.

The story indicates that a post-mortem was conducted on the body of an unknown hunger victim in the bush in Mzimba, after which the body was buried on the spot.

The article further claims that the post-mortem established that the man died of starvation.

Reacting to the article, Minister of Information, Tourism and Civic and Education Jappie Mhango admitted of the death but denied the reports that the said man died of hunger.

Mhango further claimed that Police report indicate that the said man is a non-Malawian.

“No medical professional can conduct a post-mortem exam in the bush and establish the cause of death, especially if the finding is meant to be used in Police investigations. In medical forensic enquiry, “starvation” can never be signed on a medical document as cause of death. In cases of starvation, it is specific complications of severe food deprivation or aggravated pre-existing illnesses that cause death. It is these specific causes and their relation to hunger that are stated on a medical document as cause of death. In this article, although hunger-related causes were mentioned as a cause of death earlier in the article, no specific cause was stated as would normally be the case.

“In any case, Police authorities in Mzimba have stated that there was no post-mortem done in the bush where the dead body was found. They know that this deceased person is a non-Malawian because of the head features which they could recognize on the dead body. They suspect that he is a refugee who fell sick and was abandoned by fellow refugees as they passed through bushes at night to avoid detection by Malawi authorities,” reads in part the statement made available to faceofMalawi.

He added: “Most shocking to us was that when we finally asked the medical person who visited the site, she told us that she found the body to be essentially bones. She could barely recognize some head features, and had the impression that the person had been dead for a long time. She told everybody on site that the cause of death was unknown. She was therefore surprised to hear a newspaper report that a post-mortem established the cause of death to be starvation.”

Mhango said Police and general public in the area know that Ethiopians, Somalis, Sudanese and others use these routes in their frequent attempts to cross Malawi borders illegally.

He also denied the newspaper allegations that “the Police have advised the public in the district to avoid walking long distances when they have not eaten anything in the wake of looming hunger in most parts of the country.”