Summary:

• Tanzanian student Clemence Felix Mtenga, missing since the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel, is confirmed dead, with his body set to be returned home on Sunday; Israel responded with a massive offensive, resulting in nearly 15,000 casualties, while Mtenga’s funeral is scheduled for Tuesday in Rombo, Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.

The body of a Tanzanian student who went missing in Israel after the bloody Hamas attack last month is due to be returned home on Sunday, his family said.

Clemence Felix Mtenga, 22, was one of two Tanzanians reported missing after the unprecedented October 7 attack that saw around 1,200 people killed and at least 240 taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.

In response to the deadliest attack in its history, Israel launched an air, artillery and naval bombardment alongside a ground offensive to destroy Hamas, killing nearly 15,000 people, according to the Hamas government in Gaza.

Tanzania’s foreign ministry confirmed Mtenga’s death in a statement on November 18, but did not say how he had been killed.

“We were to receive the body today but there are changes. We expect to have it tomorrow,” his sister Christina Mtenga told AFP by phone on Saturday.

She said the funeral would take place on Tuesday in the family’s home district of Rombo in the Kilimanjaro area of northern Tanzania.

Her brother was supposed to graduate this week from the Morogoro university in eastern Tanzania where he studied a degree in horticulture.

“It’s a hard situation but we are coping,” Christina said. “Clemence was polite, serious and hard working. He was religious and loved other people.”

Mtenga and another Tanzanian student, Joshua Mollel, 21, went to Israel in September for an internship programme in agriculture but both went missing after the October 7 attack.

The head of Israel’s international development agency Eynat Shlein had said on X, formerly Twitter, that Mtenga “was murdered by Hamas terrorists on Oct 7”.

Tanzania’s foreign ministry said in its update last week that Mollel was still missing.

The two students were among about 260 Tanzanian youths who went to Israel for an internship in modern farming, which is a partnership programme between the two countries.

Many of the places worst affected by the Hamas attacks were Israeli agricultural communes lining the region bordering the Gaza Strip.