Maputo, Mozambique — The widow of Alberto Adriano, a Mozambican migrant worker murdered by neo-nazi thugs in Germany last year, this week complained she was still receiving neo-nazi death threats.
Angelika Adriano, who Tuesday briefed reporters in Maputo after the burial of her murdered husband, thanked the Mozambican government for the support she received in seeking justice.
Alberto Adriano's body was flown back to Mozambique for burial, and his widow travelled to the northern province of Nampula to visit her husband's grave, and meet his relatives.
At Tuesday's press conference she said she was living under renewed death threats from neo-nazis in Germany, but was happy with the way the German government was dealing with the case.
Angelika (of German nationality) noted that for the first time, her country's government brought to court and sentenced someone for such a crime.
She also noted that the matter triggered the proposing of a bill in Germany against xenophobic behaviour.
She nonetheless complained that the German government was not paying any attention to the threats on her, nor was it providing her family any protection.
Angelika said she was even contemplating moving to Mozambique, where she believes she and her children would get better protection from racist attacks.
Also speaking at the press conference, the director of the Mozambican Institute for Immigrants, Jose Felix Mambula, observed that Alberto's was not the first case of a racist murder of a foreign worker in Germany.
Still, he noted that the circumstances of the killing (brutal beating in a public park) could not but provoke the substantial press coverage it received, in turn generating wider attention both in Mozambique and within the international community.
Mambula called on European governments to undertake serious civic education to eradicate xenophobic attitudes, rather than fire fighting after a racist killing.
He regretted that xenophobists see foreigners as people encroaching on their job openings, forgetting that migrant workers also contribute to the development of the host country.
