drinks unavailable in Mozambique that they had had the possibility to bring from Zambia. In Milhazes' opinion, both the Soviet and the Mozambican authorities had an interest to spread the thesis of an attempt by the South African government: the Soviets wanted to safeguard their reputation (exempting the plane and the crew from any responsibility), the Mozambicans wanted to create a hero. In 2007, however, Jacinto Veloso, one of Machel's most unconditional supporters within Frelimo, had sustained in his memoirs that Machel's death was due to a conspiracy between the South African and the Soviet secret services, both of which had reasons to get rid of him. According to Veloso, the Soviet ambassador once asked the President for an audience to convey the USSR's concern about Mozambique's apparent "sliding away" towards the West, to which Machel supposedly replied "Vai à merda!" (Go to hell!). Having then commanded the interpreter to translate, he left the room. Convinced that Machel had irrevocably moved away from their orbit, the Soviets allegedly did not hesitate to sacrifice the pilot and the whole crew of their own plane. Funeral and burial Machel's state funeral was held in Maputo on 28 October 1986. It was attended by numerous political leaders and other notable people from Africa and elsewhere, including Dr. Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Dr. Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, King Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho, Daniel arap Moi of Kenya and Yasser Arafat of Palestinian State. Also present were the ANC leader Oliver Tambo, the U.S. President's daughter Maureen Reagan, the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Soviet Union Heidar Aliyev, and the civil rights leader, Jesse Jackson. At the funeral, the acting leader of Frelimo, Marcelino dos Santos, said in a speech: "The shock of your journey from which there is no return still shudders through the body of the entire nation. You fell in the struggle against apartheid… You understood apartheid as a problem for all humanity." Samora Machel was buried in a star-shaped crypt at Mozambican Heroes' Square, a traffic junction in Maputo. Marriages and family life In the late 1950s, when Machel was working as a nurse on Inhaca Island, he met a local girl, Sorita Tchaiakomo, and set up house with her. Their first child, Joscelina, was born on Inhaca in 1958. Idelson (1959) and Olívia (1961) were both born after the family returned to the mainland, where