2002 — The Bullet That Ended Angola's 27-Year War

On February 22, 2002, government troops ambushed UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi in Moxico Province. Fifteen bullets ended the man who had kept Angola at war for nearly three decades. With his death, the rebel movement he had personally embodied lost its centre.

Within six weeks, UNITA signed the Luena ceasefire, finally ending Africa's longest civil war. Over 100,000 UNITA fighters demobilized, and the movement became an opposition party. A war sustained by one man's will ended weeks after he fell: the ambush in Moxico closed 27 years of conflict and let Angola begin again. After twenty-seven years, the guns fell silent within weeks of a single ambush in the bush.