{"id":28362,"date":"2016-07-20T11:57:57","date_gmt":"2016-07-20T09:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=28362"},"modified":"2016-07-20T11:57:57","modified_gmt":"2016-07-20T09:57:57","slug":"an-escape-from-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2016\/07\/20\/an-escape-from-death\/","title":{"rendered":"An escape from death"},"content":{"rendered":"

H<\/strong>is name is Charles Chidambukira Ndau and the story of his predicament in the shadow of death threatening people with albinism in Malawi is sadly becoming a common one.<\/p>\n

The average height 52-year-old, still haunted by events in February this year, is a man in a tide of people with albinism who are trying so hard to stay out of the focal lens of brutality from some human beasts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can hardly trust any person now,\u201d said Ndau, his voice sounding so subdued by eternal fear.<\/p>\n

His mistrust is understandable given that some people have now become unfriendly to their own kind. It seems like they have developed a predatory gene so deadly than that of a wild animal like a lion.<\/p>\n

The story told by Ndau is depressing. It is a sad one too. On February 6 this year, he was locked in a room of a certain shop by the owner at Lizulu Trading Centre in Ntcheu.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went there to buy iron sheets and I found the owner assisting another customer. I waited. When it was my turn, I produced money amounting to K103, 000 for the purchase of the iron sheets.<\/p>\n

After he received my money, I saw him coming out of the counter and went straight to the entrance of the shop and closed the doors,\u201d said the dejected Ndau.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe started accusing me of stealing his money through magic (Chitaka). He said that the last time I visited his shop on January 16, money amounting to K76, 000 disappeared. He claimed I was the one responsible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The shop-owner is said to have taken out K76, 000 from the money he was given and tore the remaining K27, 000 to pieces before tying Ndau\u2019s hands and threw him into another room in the shop.<\/p>\n

\u201cI pleaded with him to let me go but he refused. He told me bluntly that am done and that he was going to kill me,\u201d said Ndau.<\/p>\n

He further recounted that he heard the man make numerous calls but could not grasp what was said since he (Ndau) was locked in the room.<\/p>\n

To Ndau, this was a typical case of abduction and a prospect of death that is becoming increasingly common against people with albinism in Malawi. The thought of that forced him to find a way of freeing himself from the rope tied around his hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cI managed to untie myself and since I had a phone with me, I made a call to my son who is also a businessman at Lizulu Trading Centre. I told him where I was and the situation I was in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It was this call that saved Ndau from whatever was to befall him.<\/p>\n

Emmanuel Dyson, the son to Ndau, confirmed to Malawi News Agency <\/em>in a telephone interview that his father was really locked up in a shop.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter receiving the call, I mobilised some friends, went to the shop and confronted the owner. He refused us entry but we forced ourselves in by breaking the doors. We found my father locked in another room in the shop,\u201d said Dyson.<\/p>\n

But now Dyson and most people in his village are surprised that the owner of this shop has not been penalised for what he did and is still conducting his business at Lizulu.<\/p>\n

The anger in Ndongwe Village in T\/A Chakhumbira, where Ndau resides, has been brewing like a stormy wind. Many people feel their colleague has been short-changed on justice.<\/p>\n

A group discussion on governance issues by radio listeners clubs (RLCs) from Ntcheu is the one that brought the case of Ndau to the spotlight.<\/p>\n

Through an empowerment project on human rights funded by Democracy Consolidation Programme (DCP), communities in Ntcheu expressed their dissatisfaction with the way the Malawian police handled the issue of Ndau.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can someone who abducts a person with albinism walk free and continue to go about his business. There is foul play here and the police are not helping us,\u201d said group village headman Ndongwe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a typical scenario of selective justice that offers no help in curbing the inhuman acts against people with albinism,\u201d said Zacharia Chitowe, a monitor for Ndongwe Radio Listeners Club.<\/p>\n

Chitowe said that as communities, they are organising a protest march against these inhuman acts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will march to Lizulu Police Station to seek explanation on the matter of our friend (Ndau),\u201d Chitowe said adding that it is the duty of police to protect people against crime.<\/p>\n

A recent report by Amnesty International (AI) on violence and discrimination against people with albinism in Malawi titled \u201cWe are not animals to be hunted or sold\u201d cited poor policing as one factor that is compromising access to justice for people with albinism.<\/p>\n

But the case of Ndau seems to be a tricky one. Ntcheu Police spokesperson, Gift Matewere, said they are quite aware of the case but they did not handle the issue since it did not fall within their jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shop that Ndau was locked in is in Mozambique and the shop owner, although he is Malawian, was arrested there,\u201d Matewere said. \u201cIf the place of occurrence of an incident is in a particular country, the case is handled there and it was the same with this one.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany locals are not aware of these laws and that is why there are attacking the police in Malawi of doing nothing or insinuating foul play.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Matewere said that the police at Lizulu only got involved in Ndau\u2019s case when it facilitated a meeting with their counterparts in Mozambican for him to reclaim his money which he did.<\/p>\n

The alleged perpetrator, a well known business person at Lizulu Trading Centre, has repeatedly refused granting media interviews to give his side of the story.<\/p>\n

Ndau, a teacher at Chilobwe Primary School in Ntcheu, said that although he got his money back, he is still a haunted person that sometimes he freezes in mid motion with fear.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen am teaching I just stop abruptly and stay quiet for some seconds to the amazement of my pupils. What I went through was hellish and I still think about it. I thank God because this was an escape from death,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

His name is Charles Chidambukira Ndau and the story of his predicament in the shadow of death threatening people with albinism in Malawi is sadly becoming a common one. The average height 52-year-old, still haunted by events in February this year, is a man in a tide of people with albinism who are trying so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28366,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28362\/revisions\/28366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}