High crime wave rocks Lusaka compounds

Wed, 10 May 2017 09:59:25 +0000

By CHINTU MALAMBO

 RESIDENTS of various high density areas in Lusaka such as Mandevu, Msisi and Chilenje South are living in fear due to the high crime wave that has rocked the compounds as a day hardly passes without a person being attacked or robbed of their property during the night.

Chola Phiri, a resident of Chilenje, said a lot of people were being attacked and robbed of their household properties at night.

Ms Phiri said that Chilenje was a high density area which was prone to crime if police were not always on the move

He said that the area had become dangerous especially in the night as known members of marauding gangs were attacking and beating up people almost every day. He narrated an incident recently when he was nearly killed.

“As I was walking home on Monday around 18.30 hours, I noticed that there was someone who seemed to be following me. I could not see him clearly because it was dark and before I knew it, I was hit on the head with what felt like a metal rod,” said Mr Phiri.

When he woke up, he found himself lying in a pool of blood.  He managed to drag himself to his house where his relatives rushed him to Chilenje Level One Hospital.

He appealed to Government to put in place security measures to curb the high rate of crime in the area.  And another resident of Mandevu Ms Dorothy Wamundila complained that Mandevue was too big to be monitored by a single police station.

“There is only one police station in this area. How can they manage to patrol the whole of Mandevu? The Government should look into this matter and put up another police station. We are living in fear every day because of these criminals. We cannot even move after 19.00 hours because it is not safe at all,” she said.

Ms Wamundila appealed to the Zambia Police Service to intensify night patrols and pick up perpetrators of crime and avoid apprehending innocent individuals at the expense of hunting for the actual criminals.