Ex-president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, has died at the age of 95.
This was announced in the early hour of Friday by President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
“It is with the utmost sadness that I announce the passing on of Zimbabwe’s founding father and former President, Cde Robert Mugabe,” Mnangagwa posted on Twitter early on Friday.
“His contribution to the history of our nation and continent will never be forgotten. May his soul rest in eternal peace,” he added.
According to reports, Mugabe died in Singapore, where he had gone for treatment.
Born on February 21, 1924, into a Catholic family at Kutama Mission northwest of Harare, Mugabe was known as a loner and a studious child and was said to carry a book even while tending cattle in the bush.
After his carpenter father left the family when he was 10, the young Mugabe concentrated on his studies and qualified as a schoolteacher at the age of 17.
He was a teacher in Ghana, where he was influenced by founder President Kwame Nkrumah, but returned to what was then Rhodesia, where he was detained for his nationalist activities in 1964, spending the next 10 years in prison camps.
During his incarceration, he gained three degrees through correspondence.
Mugabe’s four-year-old son by his first wife, Ghanaian-born Sally Francesca Hayfron, died while he was behind bars. However, Rhodesian leader, Ian Smith, denied him leave to attend the funeral.
He came into power in the 1980 elections after a growing rebellion and economic sanctions forced the white minority colonial government to the negotiating table. He was the Prime Minister from 1980 to 1987, then became the president till 2017.