This archive report was first published on 23 September 2019.
Former Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's long battle with cancer has come to an end, with the 95-year-old succumbing to the disease after his chemotherapy treatment was stopped.
According to Zimbabwe's State-run Herald newspaper, President Emmerson Mnangagwa revealed that Mugabe's doctors had stopped treatment due to his age and the fact that the cancer had spread and was no longer helping.
“Treatment had stopped, doctors had stopped treatment, chemotherapy, one, because of age and also because cancer had spread and it was not helping anymore,” Mnangagwa told ruling party supporters in New York, as quoted by the Herald.
Mugabe had been in the hospital for several months in Singapore before passing away on September 6th. He ruled Zimbabwe for 37 years until he was ousted from power in a bloodless military coup in November 2017.
He will be laid to rest in a mausoleum still under construction at Heroes Acre, a hilltop shrine located in the outskirts of Harare.
It is worth noting that in 2011, WikiLeaks released a US diplomatic cable that suggested Mugabe was suffering from prostate cancer that had spread to other organs, a claim that was denied by Zimbabwe government officials at the time.
