Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera announced that his vice president, Saulos Chilima (51 years old), and 9 others were killed after their military plane crashed in a mountainous area in the north of the country.

Chakwera announced in a live speech broadcast on state television that the location of the plane’s wreckage had been located after a search operation that lasted more than a day in dense forests and mountainous terrain near the northern city of Mzuzu, stressing that there were no survivors of the accident.

He reported that former First Lady Chanel Dzimbiri, the ex-wife of former President Bakili Muluzi, was also on board the plane, which also had seven passengers and three military crew members.

The group was on its way to Mzuzu to attend the funeral of a former government minister, after Chilima arrived from an official visit to South Korea on Sunday.

Chilima was serving his second term as Vice President, after holding the same position from 2014 to 2019 under former President Peter Mutharika.

He was a candidate in the 2019 Malawi presidential election. Chilema was facing corruption charges over allegations that he received money in exchange for influencing the award of government procurement contracts for Malawi's armed forces and police, but prosecutors dropped the charges last month.

He denied these accusations, but the case sparked criticism that the Chakwera administration did not take a tough enough stance against corruption.