Maria Eugénia da Cruz, widow of MPLA founder, dies at 98

Maria Eugénia da Cruz, widow of MPLA co-founder and poet Viriato Clemente da Cruz, has died at the age of 98. Her death was announced by the MPLA Central Committee Political Bureau.

Born in 1928 in rural Angola, Maria Eugénia spent her youth studying in Portugal before returning to work in the Angolan public administration. Following political mobilization and pressure from the PIDE colonial police, she left Portugal in 1960, traveling through France before joining the MPLA leadership in Conakry in 1961.

While she did not hold formal military or political leadership roles, she was an active part of the nationalist community in exile, notably assisting with the organization of the MPLA archives. Her life spanned the most critical periods of Angola’s struggle for independence and the complex political shifts that followed.