Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi ‘killed’

The Angolan army has killed Unita leader Jonas Savimbi, who has led the rebel group’s fight for power there for more than 30 years, the army and government said in a joint statement tonight.

The statement, read on state media, said Savimbi died during an army attack on Unita forces in south-east Angola.

There was no independent confirmation of the claim.

The statement did not say where or when Savimbi was killed.

The army in recent months has said it was closing in on Savimbi’s column which was moving through the rural province of Moxico, about 500 miles south-east of Luanda, the capital.

Several senior Unita officers have recently been captured in that area.

The government army has routed Unita from its main strongholds over the past year, following the country’s return to war when a four-year-old peace accord collapsed in 1998.

That accord was brokered by the United Nations in 1994 and followed two earlier peace deals which also unravelled.

Angola’s civil war first erupted after the country’s independence from Portugal in 1975.

Unita is a Portuguese acronym for the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola.