Zimbabwe ex-leader Mugabe dies aged 95

HARARE: Robert Mugabe, the former guerrilla hero turned despot who ruled Zimbabwe for 37 years until the military forced him out, has died aged 95, the country’s president announced on Friday. He died in Singapore, where he had been hospitalised in April.

“Mugabe was an icon of liberation, a pan-Africanist who dedicated his life to the emancipation and empowerment of his people,” President Emmerson Mnangagwa tweeted after announcing the news. Opposition party leader Nelson Chamisa said that despite “great political differences” with Mugabe’s government, he recognised the “contribution made during his lifetime as a nation’s founding President.”