African leaders gather in Zimbabwe for ex-President Robert Mugabe’s state funeral
Incumbent President Emmerson Mnangagwa will address mourners at the National Sports Stadium, where thousands will wear the colours of the ruling Zanu-PF party.
The family of former Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe agreed to bury him in the National Heroes Acre monument in Harare, according to a family spokesman on Friday.
Mr Mugabe died in Singapore last week at the age of 95 that left Zimbabweans torn over the legacy of a leader once lauded as an anti-colonial guerrilla hero, but whose 37-year iron-fisted rule ended in a coup in 2017.
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His family and President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former Mugabe ally who turned against him, had been at odds over where he would be buried after his body returned home on Wednesday.
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“Yes, I can confirm,” Leo Mugabe told AFP when asked whether the family had agreed to burial in National Heroes Acre in Harare.
Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa had expressed his heartfelt demise of Mugabe, called him nation’s “founding father”.
Taking to Twitter, Mnangagwa said, “Mugabe was an icon of liberation, a pan-Africanist who dedicated his life to the emancipation and empowerment of his people”.
Mugabe won Zimbabwe’s first election after independence and became prime minister in 1980. He abolished the office in 1987, becoming president instead.
He was imprisoned for more than a decade without trial after criticising the government of Rhodesia in 1964.
In 1973, while still in prison, he was chosen as president of the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu), of which he was a founding member.
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