A year after Singaporean cricket coach's murder in Malawi, his family is still fighting for answers

Mr Arjun Menon was killed at his home in Malawi in May last year. His sister tells CNA that the family is still in the dark about what happened.

Mr Arjun Menon (left) and Ms Prema Menon in the early 2000s. (Photo: Prema Menon)

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SINGAPORE: Ms Prema Menon remembers her brother, the late Arjun Menon, not as the cricket coach the world knew, but as the boy she grew up with.

The oldest of three siblings, he was the "cool kid" she played with at their childhood home in Neptune Court, and the brother who lived by a "never punch down on people" attitude.

As adults, the siblings were more like orbiting satellites, the 42-year-old Ms Menon said.

They lived in different parts of the world – Ms Menon in Australia, Mr Menon in Africa, where he settled in Malawi in 2020 hoping to uplift the cricket community there, and their younger sister, who declined to be named, in Singapore.

Then in May 2025, while Ms Menon was back in Singapore on a visit, a call upended the family's life.

It was a Sunday morning, and the family was on their way to a house viewing. The call came from an unfamiliar country code, so they let it ring out. But it kept ringing.

Ms Menon's younger sister finally picked up. On the line was Mr Menon's wife, screaming that he was dead.

Mr Menon, the coach of Malawi's national cricket team, had been killed at his home in Blantyre, the country's second-largest city, by unknown assailants. He was 48.

The next sequence of events played out in slow motion, Ms Menon said.

“I was just in shock,” she said. “My father used to say … the biggest curse is losing your child, and all I could think of was my parents. I didn't really care about myself.

“I was just like, what am I gonna do? My parents have lost their child. How do we come back from this?”

More than a year on, Ms Menon and her family are still searching for answers. Despite repeated attempts to get updates, the family says it has struggled to obtain concrete information from the authorities in Malawi, where no known arrests have been made.

Ms Menon spoke to CNA over a Zoom call in mid-August from Melbourne, where she lives.

“It is so hard for me to sit here and know that me, my father especially, my sister and my late mother suffered this sort of violation, and nobody has the answer for it,” said the operations director for a non-profit organisation.

“I just want someone to answer for this crime, the person who did it. They shouldn't be able to walk around like nothing has happened.”

THE SEARCH FOR ANSWERS

After her brother's death, Ms Menon made preparations to travel to Malawi, a landlocked country in southeastern Africa about an 18-hour flight from Singapore.

All she knew then was that her brother had been attacked at 2am, and that his car and wallet had been stolen.

Her father, who spoke to Mr Menon daily, believed the attackers must have been strangers because he was "very well loved in the community".

“And Arjun had never felt unsafe. He loved the place. I don't think he ever mentioned any sort of threat or sort of thing.”

Ms Menon stayed in Malawi for about 10 days, laying her brother to rest there and trying to understand what had happened.

With little familiarity with the local system, the family entrusted communication with the police to the president of Cricket Malawi, where Mr Menon had worked as head of cricket operations.

But in June and the months that followed, they would hear the same, frustrating update: “They’re still investigating.”

The family also sought help from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). But Singapore has no diplomatic representation in Malawi, and with the nearest embassy in South Africa, assistance was limited.

According to MFA's website, the ministry can liaise with foreign authorities where necessary and provide a list of undertakers for reference if a family member or friend dies overseas.

However, it cannot investigate the death, give legal advice or make a police report on the family's behalf, among other limitations.

Ms Menon also approached the Singapore police and several Members of Parliament.

The Singapore Police Force told CNA it had contacted Malawi authorities and would render the necessary assistance within the ambit of Singapore's laws, should a request be made. It added that it had not received any such request from Malawi as of Aug 31.

The Malawi police did not respond to CNA's request for comment despite multiple follow-ups. MFA declined to comment.

In December, around six months after her brother's death, Ms Menon's mother died, and Ms Menon took a break from the search.

She resumed in July, calling Malawian officers directly. One officer told her he had sent a report to the embassy months earlier. But when she eventually received it from MFA, she realised it had only been sent on Jul 31, after her call.

The report offered no new information, only that police were still investigating.

In August, she finally made some headway. A new investigating officer told her that closed-circuit television footage and call logs had been reviewed, but nothing had turned up.

It was not much, but it was confirmation the investigation was still active, easing fears that the case was going cold.

She noted that the family had identified themselves to the Malawi police through MFA, and said that despite this, most updates had come from her own outreach rather than from the police initiating contact.

She also said navigating the Malawian system without established contacts had been difficult, and that having a clearer sense of which department or office to approach would have helped.

"I just think we need help. There's something missing here to get us to the next stage, and I don't think a private citizen can do it on their own."

Mr Menon moved to Malawi in 2020 to coach the country's national cricket team. (Photo: Prema Menon)

In July, Ms Menon began documenting her search for answers on Instagram, hoping to raise awareness.

“Right now, if you're unlucky enough to lose someone in a country without a Singapore embassy ... you figure it out as you go, through calls, emails, and a lot of trial and error, the same way I did."

She said that as more Singaporeans live and work in such places, this was likely to keep happening to other families, and that this was not the fault of any individual but a gap in existing systems that did not account for such scenarios.

The social media page is also a way for her to process her own grief and the loss of a future she once envisioned with her brother, she said.

“He was there from the very beginning. He's my first friend, your sibling … It's very different from the loss of my mum because a loss of a sibling is like losing a part of your body. Like it's no longer there.”

Since she began posting, Ms Menon's inbox has filled with messages from people who knew her brother, some voice notes five minutes long, others recounting how their lives changed because of him.

At the end of August, his friends hosted a charity cricket and football tournament at Singapore Cricket Club in his honour. As of Monday (Sep 14) evening, over S$13,000 had been raised on Give.Asia.

The majority of the proceeds will go to the Maoni Orphanage in Malawi and the Vivekananda Cultural Centre in Singapore.

“Hindus, we believe that when your time is up, when your purpose is done in this world, you'll be called back. That's how we view it.

“Sometimes I like to believe that, but when I hear these stories, it's very hard to believe because I feel like he has so much more to do,” she said, adding that her brother once told their father he would like to buy a farm in his retirement.

Mr Menon would likely be remembered by most for his sporting achievements. He played for the Singapore national team, and later coached Singapore to a gold medal at the 2017 SEA Games.

But Ms Menon hopes he will also be remembered for his values – the way he loved and felt intensely, and lived his life being friends with everyone.

“Lastly, my hope is that as much as Arjun loved Malawi, I hope some of that love is returned. For his death to go unanswered in a country he loved so much, I feel is a very sad way to end things.”

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阿琼·梅农先生去年五月在马拉维的家中遇害。他的妹妹告诉亚洲新闻台，家人至今仍不清楚究竟发生了什么。

2000年代初，阿俊·梅农先生（左）和普雷玛·梅农女士合影。（照片：普雷玛·梅农）

这段音频由人工智能工具生成。

新加坡：普雷玛·梅农女士回忆起她的哥哥，已故的阿琼·梅农，不是世人所知的板球教练，而是与她一起长大的男孩。

他是三兄妹中的老大，是她在海王星苑的童年家中一起玩耍的“酷小孩”，也是奉行“绝不欺负弱者”态度的哥哥。

42岁的梅农女士说，兄妹俩长大后更像是围绕彼此运行的卫星。

他们居住在世界各地——梅农女士在澳大利亚，梅农先生在非洲，他于 2020 年在马拉维定居，希望提升当地的板球水平，他们的妹妹（不愿透露姓名）则居住在新加坡。

2025 年 5 月，梅农女士回新加坡探亲时，一个电话彻底改变了这个家庭的生活。

那是一个星期天的早晨，一家人正前往看房。电话来自一个陌生的国家/地区，所以他们没有接，而是让它一直响着。但电话却一直响个不停。

梅农女士的妹妹终于接了电话。电话那头是梅农先生的妻子，她尖叫着说他死了。

马拉维国家板球队教练梅农先生在马拉维第二大城市布兰太尔的家中被身份不明的袭击者杀害，享年48岁。

梅农女士说，接下来的一系列事件如同慢动作一般发生。

“我当时完全懵了，”她说。“我父亲常说……最大的诅咒就是失去孩子，而我当时满脑子想的都是我的父母。我根本不在乎自己。”

“我当时就想，我该怎么办？我的父母失去了孩子。我们该如何走出困境？”

一年多过去了，梅农女士和她的家人仍在寻找答案。尽管他们多次尝试获取最新消息，但家人表示，他们很难从马拉维当局获得确切信息，而马拉维当局至今仍未逮捕任何人。

梅农女士于 8 月中旬在墨尔本通过 Zoom 视频通话接受了 CNA 的采访，她居住在墨尔本。

“我坐在这里，想到我和我的父亲、我的妹妹以及我已故的母亲都遭受了这种侵犯，却没有人能给出答案，这让我感到非常难过，”一位非营利组织的运营总监说道。

“我只想让罪犯为此罪行承担责任。他们不应该逍遥法外，好像什么都没发生过一样。”

寻找答案

哥哥去世后，梅农女士准备前往马拉维，马拉维是位于非洲东南部的一个内陆国家，从新加坡飞往马拉维大约需要 18 个小时。

她当时只知道，她的哥哥凌晨2点遭到袭击，他的汽车和钱包被偷了。

她的父亲每天都和梅农先生通话，他认为袭击者一定是陌生人，因为梅农先生“在社区里很受爱戴”。

“而且阿俊从未感到过不安全。他很喜欢这个地方。我想他从未提及过任何威胁之类的事情。”

梅农女士在马拉维待了大约 10 天，在那里安葬了她的哥哥，并试图了解究竟发生了什么。

由于对当地系统不太熟悉，这家人将与警方的沟通委托给了马拉维板球协会主席，梅农先生曾担任该协会的板球运营主管。

但在 6 月及之后的几个月里，他们听到的都是同样令人沮丧的消息：“他们仍在调查中。”

这家人也曾向外交部寻求帮助。但新加坡在马拉维没有外交代表机构，而最近的大使馆在南非，因此能提供的援助有限。

根据外交部网站的信息，如果家人或朋友在海外去世，外交部可以在必要时与外国当局联络，并提供殡葬服务机构名单供参考。

但是，除其他限制外，它不能调查死亡事件，不能提供法律建议，也不能代表家属向警方报案。

梅农女士还联系了新加坡警方和几位国会议员。

新加坡警方告诉亚洲新闻台（CNA），他们已与马拉维当局取得联系，如果马拉维提出请求，他们将在新加坡法律范围内提供必要的协助。警方补充说，截至8月31日，他们尚未收到马拉维方面的任何此类请求。

尽管多次跟进，马拉维警方仍未回应CNA的置评请求。马拉维外交部也拒绝置评。

12 月，在她哥哥去世大约六个月后，梅农女士的母亲也去世了，梅农女士暂停了搜寻工作。

她7月份恢复了联系，直接致电马拉维官员。一位官员告诉她，他几个月前就已向大使馆提交了一份报告。但当她最终收到外交部的报告时，才发现报告是在7月31日才发出的，也就是在她打电话之后。

报告没有提供任何新信息，只是说警方仍在调查中。

八月份，她终于取得了一些进展。一位新的调查人员告诉她，他们已经查看了闭路电视录像和通话记录，但一无所获。

虽然信息不多，但这证实了调查仍在进行中，缓解了人们对案件陷入僵局的担忧。

她指出，该家庭已通过马拉维外交部向马拉维警方表明了身份，并表示尽管如此，大多数最新消息都是她自己主动联系的，而不是警方主动联系的。

她还表示，在没有建立人脉的情况下，与马拉维体制打交道非常困难，如果能更清楚地知道应该联系哪个部门或办公室，将会很有帮助。

“我只是觉得我们需要帮助。我们还需要一些东西才能进入下一阶段，我认为一个普通公民无法独自做到这一点。”

梅农先生于2020年移居马拉维，担任该国国家板球队教练。（照片：普雷玛·梅农）

7 月，梅农女士开始在 Instagram 上记录她寻找答案的过程，希望提高人们的意识。

“现在，如果你不幸在没有新加坡大使馆的国家丢失了亲人……你只能像我一样，通过打电话、发邮件以及反复尝试来解决问题。”

她表示，随着越来越多的新加坡人在这样的地方生活和工作，这种情况很可能会继续发生在其他家庭身上，这不是任何个人的过错，而是现有制度的漏洞，没有考虑到这种情况。

她说，社交媒体页面也是她处理自己悲伤情绪以及失去曾经与哥哥一起憧憬的未来的一种方式。

“他从一开始就在我身边。他是我第一个朋友，就像你的兄弟……这和失去母亲截然不同，因为失去兄弟姐妹就像失去身体的一部分。就好像它再也不在了。”

自从梅农女士开始发布消息以来，她的收件箱里就充满了认识她哥哥的人发来的信息，有些是五分钟长的语音留言，有些则讲述了他们的生活如何因为他而改变。

8月底，他的朋友们在新加坡板球俱乐部为他举办了一场慈善板球和足球锦标赛。截至周一（9月14日）晚间，通过Give.Asia平台已筹集超过13000新元。

大部分收益将捐给马拉维的马奥尼孤儿院和新加坡的维韦卡南达文化中心。

“印度教徒相信，当你的生命走到尽头，当你在这个世界上的使命完成时，你会被召唤回去。我们就是这样看待的。”

“有时候我愿意相信这一点，但当我听到这些故事时，我很难相信，因为我觉得他还有很多事情要做，”她说，并补充说，她的哥哥曾经告诉他们的父亲，他想在退休后买一个农场。

梅农先生最令人难忘的或许是他的体育成就。他曾是新加坡国家队的队员，后来又执教新加坡队，并在2017年东南亚运动会上夺得金牌。

但梅农女士希望人们也能记住他的价值观——他爱得深沉、感受强烈，并且一生都与所有人成为朋友。

“最后，我希望，正如阿琼深爱马拉维一样，马拉维也能回报他的这份爱。在他如此深爱的国家，他的死却无人问津，我觉得这实在是一个非常悲哀的结局。”

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