cautious approach

South Africa speechless following latest murder of Rwandan dissident

By Anna Maree

Posted on Friday, 26 February 2021 17:40
The Presidents of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, and Rwanda, Paul Kagame, in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Rwandan Seif Bamporiki, a leading opposition politician, was shot dead in South Africa, where had been living in exile. His murder has left South Africa government officials confounded – even though this is far from the first case of murder of a South Africa-based, high-profile Rwandan critical of the regime of President Paul Kagame.

“We still don’t know what to make of it,” a senior official tells The Africa Report. “The police haven’t told us anything as yet, so we don’t know.”

Local co-ordinator for the Rwanda National Congress (RNC) Seif Bamporiki was shot while delivering a bed in to a customer in the Europa informal settlement in Nyanga, outside Cape Town.

It could have been passed off as just another robbery in one of the most deadly peace-time neighbourhoods in the world, were it not for one thing: witnesses say the killer’s gun had a silencer.

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