Missing cop’s family wants answers

The family of a police officer, Constable Clement Sinoya, who went missing six months ago, has raised questions over why the Malawi Police Service (MPS) is failing to locate him.

The family’s spokesperson Leonard Kadongola said efforts to trace their relative have proved futile.

“The family is still at pains and does not understand why it has taken so long for the police to find their fellow serviceman and workmate,” said Kadongola.

He said the family cannot accept that a responsible police officer, a family man, father of three children and a rational mature individual such as Sinoya can just vanish into thin air.

“The family is at pains to grapple with the fact that a whole police officer has been missing for about six months and nobody within MPS seems to have a clue as to where he is,” he said.

In a detailed account, Kadongolo said: “It was on that fateful Sunday on 20th February 2013 when I received a call from my sister-in-law informing me that my cousin Constable Clement Sinoya has not been home for almost a week. The officials at Mikolongwe Police Station [where he was working] confirmed Sinoya’s disappearance. Efforts to reach him on his mobile phone proved futile as it was out of reach.”

He said officials at Mikolongwe Police Station assured the family that they would mount a comprehensive and intensive search for their colleague within a short period.

“During the third week, we heard, not from the police but informal sources from the neighbourhood in Mikolongwe, that he was seen around Number 1 Trading Centre in Thyolo looking mentally disturbed.

“As a family, we immediately launched our own intensive search around the trading centre. Using our own resources, we literally combed the whole Number 1 Trading Centre and its environs with the support of Mikolongwe and Thyolo police. This search yielded nothing at all,” said Kadongolo.

Spokesperson for Limbe Police Chifundo Chibwezo—under whose jurisdiction Mikolongwe Police Station falls—said police are still looking for Sinoya.

Chibwezo said police are treating the matter as any other case of a missing person.

“We suspect that he is mentally disturbed. We have sent a word out that any person who would see Sinoya should report to the nearest police or Limbe Police,” she said.