Samora Machel

ABOUT SAMORA MACHEL

Military and socialist leader as well as the first president of Mozambique, who led his country from independence in 1975 until his death in 1986. He passed away in his 50s in a plane crash.

He attended nursing school and became an aide at a hospital while taking night classes. He went on to Tanzania to join the Mozambican nationalist rebellion.

He was a member of FRELIMO, a liberation movement that was founded in 1962 to fight for the independence of the Portuguese Overseas Province of Mozambique, which it achieved in 1975.

He had many children with two women he did not marry, and had two wives, with whom he had more children.

His second wife, Graca, married Nelson Mandela twelve years after Machel's death.