By Sera Chikwapula
Ngaiyaye Village in Traditional Authority Njolomole, Ntcheu, has become a place where sorrow has festered and grief has taken root in the very soil.
In the past four days, the rhythm of life has come to an eerie halt as one funeral has followed another— five members of the same family perishing within just four days.
When we visited the village Wednesday, where a funeral ceremony for the latest death was underway, it felt as though the very essence of time had been paused, frozen in the shadow of tragedy.
The same faces, hollow with exhaustion and sorrow, appeared again and again, moving with heavy steps, their eyes clouded with the weight of unbearable loss.
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A member of the bereaved Kampala family, Moses Stima, said that on Sunday, January 5, a boy visited his grandparents’ home, where he started vomiting.
“This prompted some family members to take the child to hospital for treatment, where, unfortunately, he was pronounced dead. Upon hearing the news, his grandmother fainted before starting to vomit and died the following day,” Stima, whom we found at the house of mourning, said.
He added that on the same Monday, while they were mourning the two, grandson Patience also suddenly fell ill around 2pm before being taken to hospital.
According to Stima, the patient returned after being treated, but around 10pm he began vomiting again and his condition deteriorated. He was taken back to the hospital.
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“Then he too died. While we were mourning him, his sister’s daughter also started vomiting and was taken to hospital, where she also died,” he said, sorrow written all over his face.
Stima explained that after the burial on Tuesday, on their way back from the graveyard, another child from the same family died under what he described as “mysterious circumstances.”
That death brought the total number of deceased from one family to five, sending shivers across Inkosi Njolomole’s area, with the traditional leader himself saying he was lost for words.
“If there had been an outbreak in the village or if it had been during the Covid outbreak, perhaps we could understand.
“However, we don’t know what has happened and we are still in shock because this has never happened in my area,” Njolomole said.
Like everyone else in the village, the traditional leader is awaiting answers from the police and medical personnel regarding the cause of the deaths.
Ntcheu Police Station spokesperson Jacob Khembo said that, in the meantime, the matter was being handled by Ntcheu District Hospital.
The hospital’s spokesperson, Stella Kawalala, confirmed that on Monday the hospital received an elderly woman from Ngaiyaye Village but she was pronounced dead upon arrival at the facility.
Kawalala said that later the same night, a 21-year-old member of the same family was brought in but was also pronounced dead upon arrival.
“In the afternoon on Tuesday, a child from the same family, who had been admitted to the children’s ward, passed away, bringing the total number of deaths to three,” Kawalala said.
She also confirmed the death of the other two, which brought the total to five.
“As of now, the cause of these deaths remains unknown but we have dispatched an investigation team to the village to determine exactly what has caused these deaths,” Kawalala said Wednesday.
She added that samples had been collected for laboratory testing and hospital officials were awaiting results after pathologist Charles Dzamalala, who had been invited to conduct post-mortems, completes his work.
Meanwhile, Njolomole has advised community members to remain calm as they await the results of the examinations.
Preliminary information we gathered indicated that the family members fell ill after consuming beans but there has been no confirmed link to the food so far, in the absence of medical results.
As we left the mourning village Wednesday afternoon, the grief was so palpable that it seemed to hang over the village like a tangible presence.
