Background

Muslim leaders were not happy that a certain butchery at MALDECO in Mangochi was selling pork (nyama ya nkhumba). They went forth confiscated the pork and buried it at unknown location. Their reasoning was Mangochi has a lot of Muslims hence no pork should be sold.

The owner of the butchery dragged the Muslim leaders to court on the matter some days ago

Court Ruling

The court found the Muslims guilty of conduct likely to cause breach of peace and ruled that they had no justification to bar someone from doing pork business. As such because of taking someone’s prok and burying it, they were ordered to pay a Kwacha Equivalence of the pork they buried.

The ruling was today

Muslims Reaction

The ruling by the court irked the Muslim community in Mangochi and they mobilised and started causing mayhem.

Some went to Mangochi PTC and broke it. Some cars and other shops have also been broken into and goods worth millions been destroyed

Police Reaction

The police fired tear-gas to quell the situation but when teargas was not doing the trick, some police officers fired live bullets

Injuries

Several people have sustained injuries of varying degrees. But the only critical ones have been suffered by 11 people who been rushed to Mangochi District Hospital.

One person was shot in the stomach, and that is the most critical case of all.

Additional information

A few months ago, the same Mangochi Muslims confiscated a camera belonging to MBC television and reportedly attacked cabinet ministers for filming them.