By NOEL IYOMBWA and SIMON MUNTEMBA
THE plight of the Hatembo siblings is dire because we do not know if they are still alive since police have failed to find them, the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) has said.
YALI president Andrew Ntewewe said it was said that their abductors were not known and at this stage the siblings’ plight was dire because they have been out of circulation for three months.
He also complained that efforts to petition Inspector General of Police, Kakoma Kanganja, over the police failure to find the abducted Pheluna and Milton Hatembo was blocked by the Police command in Lusaka.
Mr Ntewewe has thus challenged the police to update the nation on how far they have gone with investigations on the whereabouts of the missing siblings.
He said in an interview that they were blocked last week from holding a procession and handing a petition to Mr Kanganja by the police command.
“We have tried to petition the police over the Hatembos but the police command was not receptive to the idea of us holding a procession and handing a petition to the Inspector General of Police.
“They didn’t want to avail us with the opportunity to air our grievances to the Inspector General of Police. The call for the Hatembos to be freed remains valid even today and the call for the police to do the right thing is valid even today as we are speaking,” he said.
Mr Ntewewe has challenged the police to give an update to the public on how far they have gone in searching for the missing Hatembos.
He said they found it hard to understand why police would take this long to locate the missing Hatembos when they were well-equipped and had access to intelligence information.
“Since we have been denied a chance to petition the IG, we challenge the police to tell the nation how far they have gone in searching for the Hatembos because it is another thing to say the matter in in court but remember the people who are missing are our concern.
“We are not asking about how the court process is going on because we know that is being handled independently but what we are demanding is the information relating to the missing Hatembo siblings and how far the police have gone in this information,” Mr Ntewewe said.
