Samora Machel

He began a relationship with Sorita Tchaiakomo in the late 1950s when he was working as a nurse in Inhaca Island. Sorita gave birth to four of his children over the next few years. Meanwhile he also became involved with another woman, Irene Buque, with whom he had a daughter. He did not marry either Sorita or Irene.

He married Josina Abiatar Muthemba in 1969. The couple had one son. His wife died of cancer in 1971. Machel was devastated at the death of his young wife.

He married Graça Simbine, a teacher with active involvement in politics, in September 1975. The couple had two children.

Samora Machel was born on 29 September 1933 into a family of poor farmers in Gaza Province, Mozambique. His father, being a black Mozambican, was classified as "indigena"—a demeaning term for natives. Mozambique was under Portuguese rule back then.

His parents along with other poor peasants were forced to grow cotton instead of food grains to feed the family. The black farmers were also paid less than the white ones. Young Samora grew up witnessing the ill-treatment and discrimination the poor blacks were subjected to.

He went to a mission school run by Catholic missionaries who educated the children in Portuguese language and culture. He also started working in the fields while he was still a student.

During those days only a few professional fields were open to blacks and nursing was one of them. So he started studying nursing in the capital city of Lourenço Marques (today Maputo) in 1954.

The 1950s was a very difficult period for him. His family’s farmlands were snatched away and were given to white settlers, forcing several of his relatives to go to South Africa in search of work. One of his brothers was killed in a mining accident, adding to his mounting miseries.

Even though Machel was unable to complete his formal training, he got a job working as an aide at the Miguel Bombarda Hospital in Lourenço Marques. Here too he faced discrimination as the black nurses were paid less than the white ones. He protested against this discrimination and received a warning.

Machel was attracted to Marxist ideals and left the hospital to begin his political activities. In 1962, he joined the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO), a revolutionary group dedicated to creating an independent Mozambique.

Samora Machel left Mozambique in 1963 and went to several other African nations from where he received military training. He returned to Mozambique in 1964 and when FRELIMO launched the independence war in September that year, he led FRELIMO's first guerilla attack against the Portuguese in northern Mozambique.

He rapidly rose up the ranks in FRELIMO and became the head of the army after the death of its first commander, Filipe Samuel Magaia, in October 1966. When FRELIMO’s founder and first president Eduardo Mondlane, was assassinated by a parcel bomb in 1969, Machel took over as the president in 1970.

Machel was a revolutionary who dedicated his life to overthrow the Portuguese rule and establish Mozambique as an independent nation. He believed in guerilla war and his army soon established itself among the country’s poor.

He was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1975-1976.