A 47-year-old British national held captive by kidnappers for nearly six days in southern Malawi has been freed in a dramatic police operation that left four suspected abductors dead and a top-ranking police officer injured, Malawi law enforcement officials have confirmed.
Nusrat Osman, a long-term Malawi resident who works for a local auditing firm and originally hails from Leicester in the UK, was recovered on Thursday during a targeted raid on a location in the outskirts of Blantyre, the country’s second-largest city. A shootout broke out when responding officers encountered the kidnappers, who were armed with a military-grade AK-47 assault rifle and a sidearm. All four suspects were hit by gunfire during the exchange and later died of their wounds after being transported to a local medical facility, the Malawi Police Service said in an official statement.
Deputy Inspector General of Police Noel Kayira, who took part in the rescue mission, was also struck by gunfire during the clash. Authorities confirmed he is currently receiving hospital care and remains in a stable condition as of the latest update.
Following her successful extraction, Osman was reunited with her family and immediately taken to a hospital for routine evaluation and care, including physical and mental health assessments, according to local media reports. Osman had been abducted on September 11 from Blantyre’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood: she was driving to her home when four unidentified men blocked her car, forced her into their vehicle, and abducted her at gunpoint.
Her disappearance triggered a large-scale, cross-agency search operation, with Malawi authorities offering a substantial reward of 30 million Malawian kwacha (equivalent to roughly $17,000 USD or £12,500 GBP) for any information that would lead to her safe recovery and the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators.
Investigators have faced multiple unanswered questions in the case in the days since the abduction. Notably, no ransom demand was ever received from the captors, and no communication was received from the group after Osman was taken – a detail that has left law enforcement confused as they work to establish a motive. Police have not yet released the identities of the four dead suspects, nor have they shared details of how intelligence teams tracked the group to the raided location. Authorities also have not confirmed whether additional accomplices remain at large.
Osman, who is married with two young children, has lived and worked in Malawi for several years. Before the rescue, her family issued heartfelt public appeals for her safe return, describing the weeks of uncertainty as deeply traumatizing and urging anyone with even small details of her whereabouts to contact law enforcement immediately.
The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office confirmed to the BBC shortly after the abduction that it was aware of the incident and had been in constant contact with local Malawian authorities to support the search effort.
Kidnappings of foreign nationals are considered relatively rare in Malawi, so the abduction sparked widespread anxiety among both the southern African nation’s business community and the small population of British expatriates living in the country. In a statement after the rescue, authorities urged the general public to remain calm as investigators continue to piece together the full sequence of events that led to the kidnapping and the subsequent rescue operation. Police say their investigation into the incident remains ongoing.
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