2017: Bloody year for Arusha

MARC NKWAME in Arusha

. . . Grisly murders, accidents painted the region red

IF years were ships, then 2017 which ends today would have been the Titanic for Arusha residents who experienced life costing horrid incidents, including terrible road and air accidents.

Still wrenching parents and other residents’ hearts, is the last May’s school bus crash which claimed the lives of 35 people, among them 32 pupils of Lucky Vincent Primary School of Arusha plus their two teachers and a driver.

The accident occurred when the Mitsubishi Rosa bus with plate numbers T-871 BYS plunged into the Kwa Karani Gorge, in Rhotia Ward of Karatu District on a rainy Saturday morning of 6th May 2017, when the pupils and their teachers were travelling from Arusha City, where the school is located, heading to Karatu township to write mock examinations.

A communal requiem mass was held for the deceased at the Sheikh Amri Abeid Stadium in Arusha two days later on Monday, the 8th of May 2017, before each of the departed pupils was taken to their home villages for burial.

It was the first horrific accident to claim many lives in Karatu District and also the first such crash to kill many pupils in Arusha since the one which occurred in Kisongo back in 1971. Arusha was to suffer yet another terrible accident, this time being airborne mishap.

On Wednesday November 15, this year, eleven people were killed on the spot when the Coastal Aviation Aircraft; a Cessna Grand Caravan 5H-EGG plane crashed onto the walls of Empaakai Crater in Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

It was also the first plane crash to occur in the Conservation Area in nearly 60 years since the German Conservator, the late Michael Grizmeck, crashed his own plane which killed him inside the Ngorongoro Crater back in 1959.

Among the deceased in the last November’s Coastal Airline plane crash were Mr Nassib Mfinanga, the Director of Maasai Wanderings Tour Company and his brother, Mr Sharti Mfinanga, both were travelling from Arusha to Serengeti.

Other victims who were from Arusha include; Gift Lema, who also worked for Maasai Wanderings, Mosses Muina of ‘And Beyond,’ Ms Joyce Mkama of Serena Hotels and Simeon Kombe who worked for Mount Kili. There were other passengers, believed to have been tourists, including Steiner Alexis; Hubert Beranek; Anita Kauser and Anna Katharina.

They were flying from Kilimanjaro International Airport heading to Seronera. From KIA, the plane also picked Mr Mfalala Siyabonga of Bilila Lodge Investments of Serengeti, plus a cargo of 50 kilogrammes of provisions whose recipient was simply labelled ‘Bushtop.’

One of the villagers who witnessed the accident, Mr Runda Mollel, a resident of Nainokanoka Village, said they saw the plane flying low around the Empakaai Crater which also has a large lake at the bottom. But it wasn’t just accidents which spilled blood in Arusha 2017.

Kidnapping cases also shocked the precinct in September. Little girl Maureen David Njau (6) and a younger boy Iqram Salim (4), both residents of Olasiti Ward and were discovered dead and dumped into an unused water well.

Maureen and Iqram were among the four children who got abducted by kidnappers who held them at ransom, demanding 4 million/- from each of their respective parents. Whoever killed the youngsters had a macabre sense of humour; Maureen’s body was sliced into small pieces that were tied in polythene bags and suspended into a water well located behind an unfinished house.