Mozambique: Renowned journalist Edmundo Galiza Matos dies at 66

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Mozambique: Renowned journalist Edmundo Galiza Matos dies at 66

7:14 CAT | 14 Jun 2021

Photo: Social Media

Mozambican journalists Edmundo Galiza Matos died this Sunday, June 13, after being hospitalised at Maputo Central Hospital.

His more-than 40-year-long career demonstrated Galiza Matos’ versatile talent, reporting on politics, society and the arts, mostly on Radio Mozambique in Cabo Delgado, Nampula and Maputo.

After his retirement, in 2015, he continued to make programmes in tandem with his brother, Luís Loforte, with an emphasis on music -Mozambican, jazz, blues and rock.

He also devoted time to training young people at the Rádio Comunitária de Palma, in Cabo Delgado.

He leaves behind a widow and two children, one of them Edmundo Galiza Matos Júnior, currently serving as Administrator of Vilankulo District.

Edmundo Galiza Matos was born on August 11, 1954, in Inharrime, Inhambane province, but grew up in Cabo Delgado, where he began his career as a journalist in June 1975, at the then Emissor Regional de Porto Amélia (now Pemba).

In 1980, he was appointed to the Rádio Moçambique Provincial Broadcaster of Nampula, a position he held until 1986. In addition to administrative functions, Galiza Matos was part of the local newsroom and covered many major events.

He transferred to Radio Mozambique headquarters in Maputo in 1986, working in the newsroom there for 24 years without interruption. He ended his career in 2010 as a Senior Editor.

During his professional career in Maputo, Edmundo Galiza Matos, an unavoidable figure in the history of radio journalism, stood out as a news reporter and editor.

“I started journalism in a region of the country where there was no journalism tradition as such, in the city of Pemba. The only media organ was the regional broadcaster of Porto-Amelia, currently Pemba, and it did not have journalists. I can say that I was one of the first journalists in the city. The regional broadcaster, the only media outlet, had no journalists. It simply retransmitted the news from Rádio Clube de Moçambique, and in terms of local useful information it was very scarce. It was more obituaries, ads, and it didn’t go any further than that. So myself and others, like Mahomed Galibo, for example, were the first to work in the field of journalism, to produce newscasts for what would become the provincial broadcaster of Cabo Delgado. There was no such tradition of journalism, we didn’t have journalists as such, unlike in Lourenço Marques and Beira” Galiza Matos said in an interview last year.

Radio Mozambique extended heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family.

Tributes to Edmundo Galiza Matos keep pouring in on social media.

Source: Voa Portugues / Rádio Moçambique