Police in Salima are hunting for assailants who have defiled and murdered an 11-year-old girl, a standard 3 learner at Malawi Armed Forces College (Mafco) Primary School.

The district’s police spokesperson, Jacob Khembo says the incident occurred on Friday morning at Chipale Fishing Beach.

He says according to the deceased’s father, who is a civilian staff member at Mafco, the girl went missing on the night of February 23, 2023 at Chipale area where she was living with her mother.

Her body was found a day later by villagers who started had searching for her after she went missing.

Police say postmortem results revealed that death was due to suffocation, secondary to strangulation.

Meanwhile, the police have appealed to communities around Chipale area to assist the law enforcers with information that may lead to the arrest of the perpetrators.