How girl, 14, received news of father’s death in Darfur

  
 Eliza Oswald ponders what the future holds for her during an interview with The Citizen in Iringa yesterday following the death of her father, Corporal Oswald Chaula, who was among the seven Tanzanian peacekeepers killed in an ambush in Darfur, Sudan, last weekend. 
Iringa/ Dar es Salaam. The daughter of one of the seven Tanzanian soldiers killed in Darfur, Sudan, Corporal Oswald Chaula, learnt of the death of her father after seeing people gathered at her home when she came back from school.

Eliza Oswald, 14, a Form One student at Cagliero Secondary School in Iringa said goodbye to her father a few months ago when he left for a peacekeeping mission in Darfur.

Speaking to The Citizen yesterday in Iringa, Eliza said the day the information reached her family, her one of her aunts went to her school. “I saw my aunt heading to the administration block. I was later called to greet her and she said I was supposed to visit my grandmother at home,” said Eliza adding that: “Upon reaching home I saw many people outside our house and it was then that I was told that my father was dead.”

She said the sudden death had devastated her, but added that she was ready to face the challenges ahead.

“There is now an empty void in my life. It’s a big loss. My father worked so hard for all of us. He loved us and always told us to study hard,” Eliza said.

Mr Linus Chaula, a younger brother of the fallen soldier, asked the government the United Nations to provide Tanzanian peacekeepers in various parts of the world with more powerful weapons. He said it was painful to hear peacekeepers being killed by well-armed rebels.

Mr Chaula also asked the government to release the timetable of activities that would follow the arrival of the soldiers’ bodies.

The bodies are expected to arrive at Terminal One of Julius Nyerere International Airport at 10am tomorrow, the Tanzania People’s Defence Forces (TPDF) said in a statement yesterday.

The bodies will be flown from Khartoum in a special jet, and will be taken to the Lugalo Military Hospital mortuary ahead of an send-off official ceremony.

UN-Africa Mission in Darfur (Unamid) spokesperson Chris Cycmanick told The Citizen in a telephone interview yesterday that postmortem examinations had been carried out on all seven bodies.

He also said that those wounded in the incident described as the deadliest ever single attack on the international force in Sudan were responding well to treatment.

“They remain in serious but stable condition...we hope they will be recovering soon,” he said.