Mugabe died of cancer, says Zimbabwe media

Zimbabwe’s founding president Robert Mugabe had “advanced cancer” when he died in hospital in Singapore on September 6, the stateowned newspaper reported yesterday. The former guerilla leader, who died aged 95, came to power at the end of white minority rule in 1980 and ruled Zimbabwe uninterrupted for 37 years and seven months.

He was toppled on November 2017 in a military-backed coup, ending an increasingly iron-fisted rule marked by political oppression and economic ruin. Mugabe’s health deteriorated rapidly after the ousting and he made regular trips to Singapore to seek treatment. “Mugabe had advanced cancer, and had to be taken off chemotherapy treatment because it was no longer effective,” said The Herald yesterday.

The information was revealed by President Emmerson Mnangagwa during an address to party supporters in New York on Saturday, according to the paper. “Doctors had stopped treatment... because of age and also because the cancer had spread and it was not helping anymore,” said Mnangagwa, cited by the Herald.

The family had previously downplayed Mugabe’s frequent trips to Singapore as necessary for cataract treatment. Mugabe is expected to be buried next month at a monument for national heroes in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare.