AT LEAST 18 people have been killed in two days of public unrest in Malawi, an unlikely stage for one of the biggest anti-government protests in sub-Saharan Africa this year.
The protests, sparked by worsening fuel shortages, rising prices and high unemployment in the southern African country, have seen calls for President Bingu wa Mutharika to step down.
Malawi’s health ministry spokesman Henry Chimbali confirmed 10 deaths in the northern cities of Karonga and Mzuzu, where protesters ransacked the offices of Mr Mutharika’s Democratic Progressive party on Wednesday.
The others died in the capital, Lilongwe, and the southern commercial hub of Blantyre after police and troops fired tear-gas to disperse crowds demanding that Mr Mutharika quit.
“These figures are based on those casualties that are coming through to the hospitals,” Mr Chimbali said. “Some died in hospital, while some were brought by police already dead.”
A further 41 people were injured, six critically, he added.
The fierce crackdown in the normally peaceful nation is likely to intensify public anger against Mr Mutharika.
The campaign against him is led by a coalition of 80 groups, which claim Malawi is facing its worst shortages in 47 years of independence and is turning into an “autocratic kleptocracy”.
The pressure has intensified this year since Britain, Malawi’s former colonial ruler and its biggest donor, indefinitely suspended aid to the country.
This followed a diplomatic row over a leaked embassy cable referring to Mr Mutharika as “autocratic and intolerant of criticism” that led to the expulsion of Britain’s ambassador to Lilongwe.
In response, Britain expelled Malawi’s representative in London and suspended aid worth $550 million (€383 million) over the next four years.
As riot police confronted groups of young men in the capital, Mr Mutharika took to the airwaves to appeal for calm, saying he was happy to hear the grievances of opponents, who accuse him of ignoring civil liberties and ruining the economy.
The president, who came to power in 2004 and was re-elected in 2009, vowed to “ensure peace using any measure I can think of”.
He demanded of the protesters: “If you break shops and banks, will you have fuel? You demonstrated yesterday and throughout the night until today, but is there fuel today because of the demonstrations?
“I think God will do something to help us, will bless us, because these people are not being led by God, they are being led by Satan.”
His words however seemed to have little effect. – (Guardian service)