President Cyril Ramaphosa and Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi will participate in a commemorative event on Tuesday to mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of the passing of former President of Mozambique Samora Machel.

Machel passed away in 1986 when his plane crashed in the Lebombo Mountains near the confluence of the borders of South Africa, eSwatini and Mozambique.

Machel was on his way back from an international conference with African leaders in Zambia.

The commemorative event will take place at the crash site at Mbuzini in the Nkomazi municipality, in Mpumalanga, where the Samora Machel Museum has been established.

Acting spokesperson to the President Tyrone Seale said the crash in 1986 attracted allegations of sabotage levelled against the then South African apartheid administration.

“President Machel encouraged and enabled revolutionaries battling the apartheid system to operate in Mozambique during his presidency. This rendered the apartheid administration hostile to the Frontline States, and determined to destabilise countries supporting the liberation struggle,” Seale said.

Ramaphosa and Nyusi are scheduled to speak at the occasion and lay wreaths.