{"id":11564,"date":"2017-03-12T01:50:43","date_gmt":"2017-03-12T01:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/the-city-where-murder-is-swept-under-the-carpet\/"},"modified":"2017-03-12T01:50:43","modified_gmt":"2017-03-12T01:50:43","slug":"the-city-where-murder-is-swept-under-the-carpet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/the-city-where-murder-is-swept-under-the-carpet\/","title":{"rendered":"The city where murder is swept under the carpet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Raymond
Image caption Raymond N'goma and his five children <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Malawi's newspapers, there is much talk of the need to tackle vigilante and mob justice. But the stories Peter Walker found suggest change is some way off.<\/p>\n

In the dusty city of Mzuzu in northern Malawi, things seem to work. Mums, babies and squawking chickens pile on to a fragile network of tin-frame minibuses. Trade is thriving in the market. Here, merchants yell out the prices of rice, beans and eggs, engulfed by the odours of fresh fish and cheap rum.<\/p>\n

But behind this facade is the constant presence of death.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the scourges of drink driving, mob justice and endemic disease, there is a pungent smell of mortality. And with it, a police force seemingly oblivious, and apparently, ready to sweep murder under the carpet.<\/p>\n

I already knew Malawi's judicial system needed an overhaul. But only after I spent one sun-drenched Saturday in the city's Zolozolo neighbourhood, did I realise how urgently. <\/p>\n

Fifty-two-year-old Raymond N'goma lives in a home that is nothing more than brick walls and mounds of rubble. No roof. No doors. <\/p>\n

Raymond, who earns 90p ($1.40) per day as a bicycle taxi driver, wears a black-and-white striped basketball vest, a neat moustache and a sad frown. His five children are dressed in clothes that are threadbare, outgrown and caked in dust. Their empty eyes are fixed on mine.<\/p>\n

Raymond recalls how his second wife, who has now abandoned them, may have fatally poisoned his 18-year-old son from a previous marriage. She was held in police custody in 2011, but was returned to Raymond after four months. There was no trial and no conviction.<\/p>\n

"I can't believe she poisoned him. I'm undecided. It was only doctors who checked the body and I've just left it in the past," he says, deadpan. <\/p>\n

Sitting on the edge of a brick well, he hesitates, gazing wearily at nothing, when I ask him whether he killed his son. I laugh quietly at the absurdity of my own question. "I'm innocent. I can't poison my own son. It's complex," he answers.<\/p>\n

In another case, 35-year-old Fiskani Chipeta, a market stallholder, was found unconscious outside a primary school in January. Two unknown men dumped her at the hospital. The same day, her house was burgled.<\/p>\n

Fiskani's mother, Orlean, speaks some English, and weighs her words with tired concentration. <\/p>\n

"I don't know who killed her, we can't know," she tells me. "But the death from killing, it's too much in Mzuzu. We are crying out for a miracle."<\/p>\n

Image caption Orlean Mghogho and Tennyson Mghogho with a photograph of Fiskani Chipeta <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fiskani's parents-in-law didn't involve the police because they thought it a waste of time. Orlean's brother, Tennyson, adds: "My niece was left on the side of the road like a dead dog but there were no clues. If we went to the police they would just say: 'How do we find the suspect if there's no information?'"<\/p>\n

Along Zolozolo's dusty main road, a woman swivels on her wooden chair, and points nervously to a nearby bungalow. "It happened here," she says.<\/p>\n

Her friend Angelina Mkandawile, was beaten to death here last month. Extraordinarily, the suspect - her husband, Nogzani Hara - was kept in custody for just 48 hours. He was bailed after Angelina's burial. <\/p>\n