Maina Soko: Who she really was
Boygweda Petro standing on the bank of the Zambezi River near the spot where Maina Soko is believed to have died. Mayisana Soko remembers the day Maina Soko left her father’s home the day she died. PICTURES: JACK ZIMBA Maina Soko: Who she really was The mystery woman revealed 55 years after she was shot dead JACK ZIMBA IN 1965, a woman called Maina Soko was shot dead by the Southern Rhodesian (now Zimbabwe) soldiers on the Zambezi River, in Chiawa area. The story would have ended there, but over the years, Maina Soko’s story became a source of conspiracy theories, triggered largely by the fact that a military hospital was named after her, as well as a major road in Ndola, and two other roads in Livingstone and Chipata respectively. Maina Soko Military Hospital in Lusaka was initially a maternity annex for the University Teaching Hospital, built in the 1960s. Then in 1979, it was converted into a military hospital to take care of military casualties of the liber...