Anti-Apartheid Doctor, Wife Slain in S. Africa
A prominent black doctor and his wife, both active in the anti-apartheid movement, were gunned down by two assailants outside their home, the government said today.
The government’s Bureau for Information said Dr. Fabian Ribeiro and his wife, Florence, were killed Monday night in Mamelodi township outside Pretoria.
Police said the assailants were black, but neighbors told reporters the killers were two masked white men.
Ribeiro had been detained by the government several times, most recently following the declaration of a state of emergency in June.
His two-story home in Mamelodi was badly damaged by firebombs last year, an attack he blamed on government agents.
He was known in Mamelodi as “the people’s doctor” and frequently treated victims of political violence in the township.
Florence Ribeiro was the sister of Robert Sobukwe, a leader of the Pan African Congress who died in 1978. That organization, along with the African National Congress, is one of the two main guerrilla organizations fighting to overthrow the government.
The government accused Ribeiro in 1979 of trying to recruit youths to join the ANC, but he was acquitted.
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