Zimbabweans on Saturday mourned the death of their founding father, but there was confusion over when his body would be returned from abroad for burial, two years after he was toppled in a coup. Mugabe died on Friday aged 95 in Singapore, where he had long received medical treatment.
There were no major public events to mark Mugabe’s passing in the capital Harare. Residents expressed a mix of sadness at the former president’s death and frustration that their daily hardships had not relented since he left power. The Zimbabwe Independent newspaper reported in August that Mugabe, who cut a bitter figure since the 2017 coup, preferred not to be buried at Heroes Acre because he did not want Mnangagwa to “pontificate over his dead body.”
Mugabe was feted as a champion of racial reconciliation when he first came to power in 1980 in one of the last African states to throw off white colonial rule. “Even now we have livestock we keep in the rural areas because of him. So, it’s painful to lose our father, our grandfather who helped us to learn and go to school,” said Tongai Huni, a fruit vendor, speaking in the local Shona language.
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