He was in the former Portuguese colony, one of two Special Administrative Regions of China, to participate in the fifth International Infrastructure Investment and Construction Forum, which ends Friday.
His failure to respond to phone calls and attend appointments on Thursday morning caused concern, and the door of the hotel room in which he was staying was broken down. Those who found his body tried to perform CPR without success.
The Guinea-Bissau delegate at Forum Macau, Mr Malam Bakare Camará, confirmed to Lusa news agency that the minister was declared dead in the hospital. He added that medical information provided at the time suggests a possible cardio-respiratory arrest.
In a statement issued yesterday, the Macau judiciary police said that a colleague of the minister went to his hotel at around 9am. According to the police his body bore no injuries. Following a preliminary investigation, authorities have confirmed that there is no indication of a crime.
However, they haven’t provided any official cause of death so far, referring the case to a team of physicians.
Rui de Araújo Gomes had left Guinea-Bissau early last week and travelled to Macau, in order to participate in the International Infrastructure Investment and Construction Forum.
An adviser to the minister stated that when they departed from Guinea on Monday, Rui de Araújo Gomes “did not present any signs of illness,” thus making his death a “huge surprise.”
The 61-year-old minister had studied in the former Czechoslovakia and was a civil engineer. His cousin, Carlos Gomes Júnior, was the former prime minister of Guinea-Bissau, in a government that was deposed through a military coup in April 2012.
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