South Africa and Mozambique on Monday held a joint ceremony to honour the late Mozambican president and freedom fighter Samora Machel.
Mozambique's Samora Machel honoured 40 years after his death in a plane crash
Remnants of the plane that carried the late Mozambican President Samora Machel, Mbuzini, South Africa, 19 October 2026.
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He died 40 years ago in a plane crash in Mbuzini, a village in South Africa’s Mpumalanga province which is close to its borders with Mozambique and eSwatini.
The commemoration took place at the crash site, where a monument and museum were built more than a decade ago.
On 19 October 1986, Machel, some members of his cabinet, and journalists were returning from a meeting of regional leaders in Zambia.
Speaking at Monday’s ceremony, his daughter Josina Ziyaya Machel, said her father had died “because of the liberation of South Africa”.
“They had gone specifically to Zambia to discuss the issues of frontline states, but in particular, the shaping and the preparation for South African independence,” she said.
A crash investigation led by the then-apartheid South African government blamed the pilots and ruled out any foul play.
Officials and experts from Mozambique and the then-Soviet Union, where the aircraft was manufactured, rejected the findings.
Mozambique believed the crash was planned by the South African government to assassinate Machel.
One allegation was that a false beacon had been erected to divert the aircraft off course, but this was dismissed by the inquiry.
South Africa's post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission also examined the crash but did not make any conclusive findings, only recommending further investigations.
It did, however, raise some questions about the conclusions of the 1987 inquiry, including the alleged presence of South African soldiers in the area of the crash a day before it happened.
Machel spearheaded Mozambique’s struggle for liberation from Portuguese colonial rule and became the country’s first president following its independence in 1975.
His death sent shock waves throughout the continent, where he was an outspoken and revered anti-colonial voice.
He supported liberation movements in the region, including the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, making him and his country vulnerable to attack.