Several dignitaries and African leaders gathered at the Harare sports stadium on Saturday to bid farewell to Zimbabwe’s founder Robert Mugabe, reported Reuters.
Mr. Mugabe, who served as Zimbabwe’s President for 37 years until he was ousted by his own army in November 2017, died at the age of 95 in a Singapore hospital a week ago.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and a dozen current and former African leaders are also expected to attend the funeral.
Mr. Mugabe’s nephew Leo on Friday confirmed that the former president will be buried at a Zimbabwean national shrine in Harare in about 30 days and not on Sunday as earlier reported.
“The government and the chiefs went to the Heroes Acre, showed each other where President Mugabe is going to be buried, and that place would take about 30 days to complete,” said Leo, who has acted as a spokesman for the family.
“So what that means is the burial will take that long,” he said.
The announcement follows a feud between Mugabe’s family and the Zimbabwean government over the funeral site. The family members alleged that the government announced the funeral programme without even consulting them.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the ruling ZANU-PF party have wanted Mugabe buried at a national monument to heroes of the liberation war against white minority rule. But the former president’s relatives, expressing bitterness at the way former comrades including Mnangagwa had ousted Mugabe, had pushed for him to be buried in his home village.
Leo said Mugabe’s body will be preserved until the burial. When asked whether a mausoleum or similar structure would be built for Mugabe, the nephew said,“Yes, something like that”.
He also disclosed that the burial site will not be next to the one of the former president’s first wife Sally, who died in 1992.
