Skip to main content
Lesotho: Ramaphosa flies in to defuse crisis after ex-army chief killing

SOUTH AFRICAN Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa has travelled to neighbouring Lesotho to help resolve the deepening crisis there.

The Southern African Development Community said in a statement yesterday that President Jacob Zuma had decided to dispatch Mr Ramaphosa following last week’s assassination of former Lesotho Defence Force commander Lieutenant General Maaparankoe Mahao and an exodus of political opposition leaders to South Africa.

Gen Mahao, a supporter of former prime minister Tom Thabane and his All Basotho Convention (ABC) party, was shot dead by soliders outside his home last Thursday.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Pic: Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital only hospital in Soweto and the largest in sub Saharan Africa in 2017 / Pic: amanderson2/CC
Features / 22 May 2026
22 May 2026

ROGER MCKENZIE recalls the one-in-a-generation communist leader murdered at the dawn of a new South Africa 33 years ago last April 10

Vietnamese civilians at My Lai
War / 19 March 2026
19 March 2026

PATRICK CHURA reflects on the mass murder of civilians in wartime and his own visit, 10 years ago, to My Lai where US soldiers slaughtered over 500 men, women, children and infants

CHANGING TIMES: Delegates at a South African Communist Party national congress at the University of Johannesburg. Photo: GCIS/Creative Commons
Features / 17 July 2025
17 July 2025

The shared path of the South African Communist Party and the ANC to the ballot box has found itself at a junction. SABINA PRICE reports

South Africa's Police Minister Senzo Mchunu (centre) visits an abandoned gold mine where miners are rescued from below ground, in Stilfontein, South Africa, January 14, 2025
South Africa / 14 July 2025
14 July 2025