Four people have been killed and 12 others injured after a car in Malawi's late vice president's burial procession slammed into mourners in a village on Sunday night.
It was part of a procession bringing Saulos Chilima's remains, who perished in an aircraft tragedy earlier last week.
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The truck plowed into a crowd in Ntcheu, a community in central Malawi.
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The automobile, together with other military, police, and civilian vehicles, was on its way to Chilima's home hamlet of Nsipe, 180 kilometers (110 miles) south of the capital Lilongwe, for his funeral on Monday, which has been proclaimed a national holiday.
"Due to the impact the two female and two male pedestrians sustained severe head injuries and multiple fractures and died whilst receiving treatment," said a police statement.
According to police spokesperson Peter Kalaya, 12 additional persons were hurt.
Thousands of people lined the streets to see the vice president's casket.
According to an eyewitness, the car collided with the crowd while attempting to escape the tense situation.
Felix Njawala, a spokesperson for Chilima's party, said there was considerable tension along the road as mourners asked that the procession halt so they could view the casket.
"In Dedza, people blocked the road and demanded to see the coffin," he told AFP, "only when the convoy stopped were people pacified and the convoy was able to proceed," adding that in some instances, people threw stones at the convoy.
While he admitted that party supporters had questions, he urged them to remain peaceful.
On Thursday, the party called for a probe into the jet disaster.
Chilima and eight others perished on Monday when a military plane on an internal flight crashed into Malawi's Chikangawa Forest in severe fog.
The wreckage of the jet was discovered on Tuesday.
His party, the United Transformation Movement (UTM), will run on a combined ticket with President Lazarus Chakwera's Malawi Congress Party (MCP) in the 2020 presidential election.
During a public viewing of the body at a Lilongwe Stadium on Sunday afternoon, Chakwera asked for an impartial investigation into the disaster.
