Death
After surviving more than a dozen assassination attempts, Savimbi was killed on February 22, 2002, in a battle with Angolan government troops along riverbanks in the province of Moxico, his birthplace. In the firefight, Savimbi sustained 15 wounds from machine gun fire to his head, throat, upper body and legs. While Savimbi returned fire, his wounds proved fatal almost immediately.
Savimbi's somewhat mystical reputation for eluding the Angolan military and their Soviet and Cuban military advisors led many Angolans to question the validity of reports of his 2002 death. Not until pictures of his bloodied and bullet-ridden body appeared on Angolan state television, and the United States State Department subsequently confirmed it, did the reports of Savimbi's death in combat gain credence in the country. Savimbi was interred in Luena Main Cemetery in Luena, Moxico Province. On January 3, 2008, Savimbi's tomb was vandalised and four members of the youth wing of the MPLA were charged and arrested.
Read more about this topic: Jonas Savimbi
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“For ‘tis not in mere death that men die most.”
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