John Matambu

UPDATE 19 March 18:55

Good evening everyone

Today was always going to be a difficult day, as we had a number of leads that mobilised numerous agencies across Mozambique and South Africa.

We are beyond thankful to these agencies for their support today, and to the special individuals who gave up their day to help search for Matambu, conduct interviews and track down leads.

We have a far clearer picture of what happened, and a person of interest.

What we know is as follows:

• the person of interest and Matambu made it to Island Rock as per the charter
• ⁠Matambu messaged to say he was returning soon
• ⁠Not verified yet, but it looks like the boat then went 10kms out to sea where Matambu’s cellphone was discarded.
• ⁠the boat then traveled at high speed and was spotted by various lodges along the coast until its final beaching near Dobela
• ⁠The person of interest, torched the boat.
• ⁠We had a sighting of him making his way down to Ponta Mamoli, and have confirmation that he spent a night in one of the huts in the local village
• ⁠He arrived at 7pm at night. He said he was in a quad bike accident and he sold 2 fishing rods to the local village.
• ⁠He had two bags that he was traveling with, that he kept on him at all times.
• ⁠The next morning the village fed him and he caught a taxi through Zitundo to Maputo, where he arrived at 3:30pm Sunday afternoon.
• ⁠The taxi driver has been interviewed and confirmed that the person of interest was in the car and even took money from the taxi driver to carry on his travels.
• ⁠Last known location is Junta- Maputo at Sunday at 15:30
• ⁠Please see the attached photo of the person of interest, who may be dangerous.