Malawi has mastered one skill to perfection: holding moments of silence.
Whenever tragedy strikes, we lower our heads, issue polished statements, promise “thorough investigations” and assure the nation that “the law will take its course.” Then everyone returns to business as usual—except the grieving families, whose lives will never be usual again.
Within eight months, two young female medical doctors—both based in Blantyre—are gone.
Dr Victoria Bobe was killed at her home in Chigumula. Months later, Dr Atughanile Chomo was found dead at her residence in Mount Pleasant.
To their families, friends and colleagues, no words can lessen this pain. Malawi mourns with you. The nation has not merely lost two professionals; it has lost two women who devoted years of sacrifice to acquiring skills desperately needed in a country that constantly complains of having too few doctors.
Apparently, producing doctors is difficult. Protecting them is even harder.
Every time government officials speak about the shortage of medical personnel, they remind us how valuable doctors are. Yet somehow, when those very doctors become victims of violent crime, we seem content to respond with condolences, press conferences and promises.
The uncomfortable question refuses to disappear.
Just how safe are Malawians?
If young professionals living in established urban neighbourhoods cannot sleep peacefully in their own homes, what hope remains for the ordinary citizen who cannot afford burglar bars, electric fences, private guards or CCTV cameras?
We have reached the stage where securing a house costs almost as much as building one.
Soon, every home will resemble a maximum-security prison. The only difference is that the prisoners will have committed no crime.
And yet, despite all this, we continue congratulating ourselves on maintaining peace.
Peace?
Peace is not the absence of war.
Peace is the confidence that your daughter will return safely from work. Peace is knowing your neighbour will wake up tomorrow. Peace is believing that doctors spend their nights treating patients instead of becoming victims whose deaths dominate the news.
What worries many Malawians is not only the crimes themselves but the pace at which justice appears to move afterwards.
It took about eight months before suspects appeared in court over the death of Dr Bobe. Criminal investigations must, of course, be thorough, professional and guided by evidence rather than haste. No one wants innocent people arrested simply to satisfy public pressure.
But justice should not move so slowly that the public begins wondering whether criminals are developing patience instead of fear.
Punishment is supposed to discourage crime. Delay risks doing the opposite.
If justice arrives long after public attention has moved elsewhere, what message does that send to those contemplating violence?
That eventually, perhaps, someone might come looking?
The Malawi Police Service has one of the most difficult jobs in the country. Officers often operate with limited vehicles, outdated equipment, insufficient forensic capacity and stretched budgets. Those challenges are real and cannot be ignored.
But citizens judge institutions by outcomes, not excuses.
Every unsolved case chips away at public confidence.
Every prolonged investigation invites uncomfortable questions.
Every grieving family waiting for answers weakens trust in the institutions meant to provide protection.
Security cannot survive on press releases alone.
Neither can justice.
The courts, too, have a responsibility. Cases involving violent crime deserve timely attention while fully respecting the rights of the accused and the requirements of due process. Justice delayed may sometimes be unavoidable, but it should never become the public expectation.
Communities must also stop treating crime as somebody else’s problem.
People hear suspicious noises and turn up the television.
They witness suspicious behaviour and decide it is “none of my business.”
They know dangerous individuals but prefer silence.
Then, when tragedy strikes, everyone suddenly becomes an expert on what should have been done.
Crime thrives where communities stop caring for one another.
Government must invest far more seriously in public safety. Better forensic laboratories, modern investigative technology, adequate transport, intelligence gathering, street lighting and community policing are no longer luxuries. They are necessities.
After all, what is the value of building hospitals if the very doctors meant to work in them cannot count on their own safety?
A country that cannot protect those who save lives is sending a deeply worrying message about the value it places on every other life.
The greatest tribute Malawi can pay to Dr. Victoria Bobe and Dr Atughanile Chomo is not another carefully crafted statement beginning with the words, “We are deeply saddened.”
We have become experts at being deeply saddened.
What we desperately need is to become equally skilled at preventing the next tragedy.
Because if the deaths of two young doctors within eight months fail to shake us into action, perhaps the only thing still safe in Malawi is our ability to make speeches after it is already too late.
