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Hello and welcome to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service with me Rebecca Kesby

And today we go back 35 years to apartheid South Africa.

It dominated the region and the Cold War dominated global diplomacy.

So when the socialist president of Mozambique was killed in a mysterious plane crash on the South African border,

many suspected foul play.

A plane carrying nearly 40 people is reported to have crashed in South Africa near the borders

with Mozambique and Swaziland.

President Samora Michelle of Mozambique and several Mozambican officials were on their way back from a summit meeting in Zambia

when the plane they were on crashed in a rugged area of South Africa.

On the night of October the 19th, 1986, an airliner carrying the leader of Mozambique,

Samora Michelle, plunged into a remote hillside just a few hundred meters

inside the South African border, 33 people on board were killed, including

the President.

Nine survived the crash.

On a rocky hillside, the wreckage, I can recognize one of the wings, the fuselage sector, but really there is not pretty much less of the plane. The plane, flown by an experienced Soviet crew, was returning to the Mozambican capital from Zambia, where Samora-Michel had been meeting

regional leaders to discuss their various conflicts and disputes with the white regime in South Africa.

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