This past Easter is one that family, friends and fans of Tanzanian actor Steven Kanumba will recall with grief.
It was the Easter when Kanumba, the darling of Tanzania’s movie industry, died under unclear circumstances.
According to one of the doctors who examined Kanumba’s body at Muhimbili National Hospital in Dar es Salaam and who sought anonymity, the actor succumbed to injuries to the head.
On the night he died, the 28-year-old actor was reportedly with 18-year-old Elizabeth Michael, popularly known as Lulu.
Kanumba’s sudden death shocked his fans in East Africa and West Africa, particularly Ghana and Nigeria, where he had achieved prominence in the continent’s leading film industry, Nollywood.
Kanumba had returned home from a trip to Ghana just a few days before his death.
Speaking to Kanumba’s close friends and fellow actors, The EastAfrican learnt that “The Great,” as he was popularly known, died just when he was about to realise his dream of working in Hollywood.
The actor was also reportedly longing to start a family, so much so that, in his last days, he had taken to befriending children and making movies featuring children and targeting young audiences.
He was buried at Kinondoni cemetery in Dar es Salaam on April 10 in a ceremony billed by many as one of a kind. Crowds thronged the burial site.
It was double grief for thousands of mourners who left without paying their last respects to the fallen film star as crowds surged to an unmanageable level.
Chaos and disorder took centre stage first at Leaders’ Club, where the viewing of the body was to take place before the burial at Kinondoni cemetery.
Some of the Tanzanian films that featured Kanumba are Offside, The Family Tree (with Elizabeth ‘Lulu’ Michael), Uncle JJ and This is it.
