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Robert Mugabe dies at 95

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Former Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe has died aged 95.

FILE PHOTO: Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe looks on during a rally marking Zimbabwe’s 32nd independence anniversary celebrations in Harare April 18, 2012.REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

Mugabe, died in Singapore, where he had been receiving treatment for a couple of months.

The founding president had ruled the southern African nation from 1980 to 2017, when he was ousted by his vice-president with the help of the military.

Mugabe was feted as an African liberation hero and champion of racial reconciliation when he first came to power in a nation divided by nearly a century of white colonial rule.

Zimbabwe president Emmerson Mnangagwa took to Twitter to break the news, calling him an ‘icon of liberation’ who will be remembered for a long time.

Mugabe was championed as a liberation hero when he came to power following almost a century of white colonial rule.

In November, Mnangagwa said Mugabe was no longer able to walk when he had been admitted to a hospital in Singapore, without saying what treatment Mugabe had been undergoing.

Officials often said he was being treated for a cataract, denying frequent private media reports that he had prostate cancer.

For a man who ruled Zimbabwe for nearly 40 years, opinion about him is divided.

On one hand his supporters, considered him as a hero who helped Zimbabwe from British colonialism, while on the other, detractors accused him of economic mismanagement, corruption and crimes against humanity.

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