Senior Tanzania embassy official killed in freak car crash in Malaysia

A senior Tanzanian embassy official in Malaysia, Apolonia Mbogo Mwangosi, has been killed in a car crash in a freak accident that occurred near the capital, Kuala Lumpur.

 

Mwangosi, who served as second secretary in Tanzania’s High Commission to Malaysia, was in the company of a Nigerian man when the accident occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning, according to media reports from the Asian country. “In the 1.30am incident, Apolonia Mbogo David Mwangosi, 46, died on the spot while the driver of the car, Linus Okafor, 35, a Nigerian, only suffered minor injuries,” The Star Online of Malaysia said in a report.

 

 Ampang Jaya Police headquarters traffic chief, DSP Hambazi Abdul Rahman, said the car had hit a steel barrier at the Ampang Waterfront parking area before plunging into the river. 

 

The body of the deceased Tanzanian diplomat was sent to Kuala Lumpur hospital while the injured Nigerian student is receiving treatment at Ampang hospital.

 

Police officials said preliminary investigations showed that the driver had accidentally stepped on the accelerator pedal while attempting to park, causing the car to crash through the metal barricade. “The car fell straight into the river

and overturned,” said one Malaysian police official.

 

“The driver, a Nigerian student, survived the ordeal with leg injuries,” he said. It remains unclear what the two were doing at the recreation centre at around 1.30am.

 

Officials from Tanzania’s High Commission in Malaysia and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, East Africa, Regional and International Cooperation in Dar es Salaam were not immediately available for comment

 

 

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN