Good afternoon. While President Daniel Chapo was visiting Inhambane last week, armed men arrived at the home of Ilídio Facitela Gustavo in Morrumbene. According to Anamola, they identified themselves as police officers and took him away in front of his wife and child. His body was found the following day in neighbouring Homoíne.
Gustavo was Anamola’s political mobilisation coordinator in Morrumbene and is also reported to have been a police officer. Venâncio Mondlane says he was to be a witness in Mondlane’s forthcoming Supreme Court trial over the protests following the disputed 2024 elections.
That does not establish who killed Gustavo or why. The abductors may only have posed as police, and Mondlane has not demonstrated that the murder was connected to the trial. But it is the latest in a succession of killings and disappearances affecting people associated with Mondlane and other government critics.
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Mondlane’s lawyer Elvino Dias and Podemos representative Paulo Guambe were shot dead in Maputo in October 2024. Journalist and opposition activist Arlindo Chissale was abducted in January 2025 and remains missing. Anamola organiser Anselmo Vicente was shot dead in Chimoio in May.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office has not been entirely silent. In April, Attorney-General Américo Letela told parliament that three suspects had been identified and questioned in the Dias–Guambe investigation, with two held at the Maputo Remand Centre. Investigators were pursuing three theories, including a possible connection to Nini Satar and a forged death certificate prepared for Edite Cylindo in a case in which Dias had been charged.
