Zimbabwe's former president Robert Mugabe dies in Singapore

[JOHANNESBURG] Former Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe died in Singapore, where he has often received medical treatment in recent years, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Mr Mugabe's death at age 95 was announced by the country's President Emmerson Mnangagwa earlier on Friday on his official Twitter account.

"It is with the utmost sadness that I announce the passing on of Zimbabwe's founding father and former President, Cde Robert Mugabe," a post on Mr Mnangagwa's official presidential Twitter account said.

In November, Mr Mnangagwa said Mr Mugabe was no longer able to walk when he had been admitted to a hospital in Singapore, without saying what treatment Mugabe had been undergoing.

Officials often said he was being treated for a cataract, denying frequent private media reports that he had prostate cancer.

Mr Mugabe, who ruled the southern African nation for nearly four decades since independence from Britain in 1980, was forced to resign in November 2017 after an army coup.

He was feted as an African liberation hero and champion of racial reconciliation when he first came to power in a nation divided by nearly a century of white colonial rule.

REUTERS