ROBERT MUGABE: 1924 – 2019
Relatives and Zimbabwean government officials traveled to Singapore, where former President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe died after receiving treatment for several months, to collect his body.
The visiting group, who include Vice President Kembo Mohadi, arrived on Tuesday and attended a private Catholic mass for Mugabe at the parlor, officiated by a Zimbabwean priest.
A hearse carrying the body of Zimbabwe’s ex-president Robert Mugabe left a funeral parlor in Singapore on Wednesday bound for an airport from where it will be flown back to Zimbabwe for burial.
Mugabe, who swept to power after Zimbabwe’s independence from Britain and went on to rule for 37 years until he was ousted in 2017, died on Friday, aged 95.
His health deteriorated after he was toppled by the military and former loyalists in November 2017, ending an increasingly tyrannical rule that sent the economy into ruin over the years of his rule.
On arrival in Zimbabwe, Mugabe’s body will be taken straight to his village in Kutama, in Zvimba district west of the capital Harare, for a vigil.
On Thursday and Friday the body will lie in state at Rufaro Stadium in Mbare township in Harare — where Mugabe took his oath of office — for the public to pay their final respects.
The official funeral will be held on Saturday at the giant 60,000-seat National Sports Stadium in Harare and foreign leaders are expected to attend.
His body will be buried on Sunday but the location remains unclear.