LILONGWE, Malawi, CMC – President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera has canceled a visit to the Bahamas in the Caribbean after a plane carrying Vice President Dr. Saulos Klaus Chilma and nine other people crash-landed in the Chikangawa forest on Monday.
President Chakwera was due in the Bahamas from June 12 to 14 to participate in the 31st African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) annual meeting and Afri-Caribbean Trade and Investment Forum, which will be held in Nassau.
The bank said that more than one thousand delegates, including African and Caribbean leaders and senior government officials, African and non-African policymakers, corporate and business leaders, bankers, entrepreneurs, academics, and other thought leaders, will attend the meeting.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that his participation comes at the invitation and sponsorship of Afreximbank, and it would have been the bank’s first annual meeting to be held in the Caribbean.
“Malawi is poised to benefit immensely from its participation at the meetings as it will garner more support and forge more partnerships in line with the Agriculture, Tourism, and Mining (ATM) Strategy and the special economic zones and industrial parks initiative that President Chakwera launched recently,” the Ministry had indicated.
President Chakwera was also due to travel to Bürgenstock in Switzerland to attend the Global Peace Summit on June 15-16.
A statement issued by the Malawi government said that the Vice President and others were on a Malawi Defence Force aircraft and were scheduled to land at the Mzuzu International Airport.
“All efforts by aviation authorities to make contact with the aircraft since it went off the radar have failed thus far,” the statement said, adding that the “President has since canceled his scheduled departure for the Bahamas.”
The statement said he ordered all national and regional agencies to conduct an immediate search and rescue operation to locate the aircraft.
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