Written by Richard Kayenda
Mzimba Heritage Association has announced that due to the global pandemic of Covid-19, the annual Umthetho celebrations which take place at the foot of Hora Mountain in Mzimba District, will not be held this year.
According to the organising secretary of the association, Moses Mkandawire, the decision to cancel the celebrations, has been arrived at following the alarming statistics of people who are testing positive for the disease everyday.
Mkandawire said: “As you all know that Malawi is equally affected by Covid-19, and Mzimba has also registered huge numbers of the disease, Mzimba Executive Council under the advice of His Majesty Inkonsi ya Makhosi mMbelwa V, has decided to postpone the celebrations until next year. We believe that with the measures that government is putting in place, the number of affected people will begin to diminish.”
Umthetho cultural celebration is an annual festival which the Ngoni people of Mzimba District observe in the first week of August.
In Mzimba alone, over 400 people tested positive for Covid-19 and about five people have so far died of the disease.
Meanwhile, President Dr Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera has called upon all religion inclined Malawians to observe a three day prayer and fasting service in a bid to ask God to heal the nation from the deadly pandemic.
