Chaos in Lilongwe: Vendors clash with police over burnt market

There was commotion in Lilongwe’s Old Town yesterday as chaos reigned and business ground to a halt as police clashed with irate vendors for hours in a bid to disperse them and bring sanity.

Malawi Police Service (MPS) national spokesperson Rhoda Manjolo said in an interview police officers were trying to secure and protect property which was left after fire damaged part of a flea market on Tuesday night.

She said: “What happened is that when the police were trying to clear vendors and secure the premises to ensure trading goes on smoothly, they met resistance from the vendors which triggered the clashes. It was not an operation to remove vendors, but to protect property and ensure business was going as usual.”

Spot-checks by The Nation crew in the city saw minibuses dropping off passengers in panic as they escaped from a menacing mob carrying a wide range of things such as machetes and stones.

The irate mob along the M1 Road moved from Old Town to Area 3 roundabout near the Area 3 Police Station, stoned anything in their way as police officers ran for safety, leaving shops and vehicles at the mercy of the mob. The incident forced shop owners to close down their shops.

Chairperson of Lilongwe Vendors Association, James ‘Yelayela’ Soko, distanced his vendors from the violence.

Said Soko: “Those who were responsible for violence are not genuine vendors. We had a meeting with all the vendors in the morning in the aftermath of the fire. We resolved to request President [Peter] Mutharika to come and see the damage and help us to recover [the losses]. We made it clear that violence was not the course of action.”

However, Soko could not indicate the monetary value of the property destroyed as they were yet to come up with a final assessment.

There was heavy armed police presence in the Bwalo La Njobvu Area with sporadic running battles.

Vendors lost merchandise estimated in millions of kwacha after fire on Tuesday night destroyed their stalls. It took fire fighters more than five hours to subdue the fire.

By Wednesday morning, Lilongwe City Council officials and police were yet to establish the cause of the fire, which burnt down an enclosed and better- developed section of the sprawling flea market, a stone’s throw from Lilongwe Bridge.

Business owners of the predominant flea market stalls, crudely made from poles and iron sheets, routinely close their business days by locking away their valuable goods in the more secure section of the market, which had several modern buildings.

Francis Masangano, a security guard on duty when the fire broke out, said in an interview they saw fire engulfing one of the buildings at the corner of the market enclosure at around 8:30pm.

He said businesspersons from the Asian community called the fire brigade which rushed to the scene.

Yesterday afternoon, the President visited the burnt market and urged the vendors to remain calm as they await government’s intervention.

A vendors’ representative told the President the fire has inflicted a huge loss on them as many have loans with financial institutions.

In recent months, market fires have burnt vendors’ merchandise in Mzuzu, Blantyre and now Lilongwe.