A husband, Patseni Naison, 26, drowned along side his wife, Liness Tumbwe, 21, while trying to cross Nambuma River at Ntaya Village in Traditional Authority Khongoni in Lilongwe district on January 19, 2022.
It is said that the couple and others left their residential village for Nambuma, Dowa district, to do some piecework.
On their return from Dowa on January 18, they found Nambuma River flooded with rain water.
On this day, they opted not to attempt crossing the river but to spend a night on that side.
However, on the next day January 19, at around 09:00 hours, they started off again for home.
Upon reaching the river this time around, the husband decided to ferry one individual at a time starting with his brother crossing the river to the other side.
This first attempt worked, before going back to the other side to carry his wife to safety.
However, as they tried to cross past the man-made bamboo bridge at the middle of the river, the wife, Liness, accidentally fell into the river.
This incident forced the husband, Patseni Naison to jump into the water to rescue his wife who was being carried away.
Unfortunately, both Naison and Liness failed to survive the force of the waters.
Their bodies were found later in the afternoon at a distance of about three hundred metres away.
Postmortem by Malembo Health Centre revealed that deaths were a result of suffocation.
Patseni Naison, hailed from Ntaya Village, T/A Khongoni, Lilongwe, whilst his wife Liness Tumbwe, hailed from from Chilemba Village, T/A Dzoole in Dowa District.
