Harare - Former Zimbabwean leader Robert
Mugabe died from cancer after chemotherapy treatment was
stopped because it was no longer effective, a state-owned
newspaper quoted President Emmerson Mnangagwa as saying, the
first time the government has given the cause of his death.
Mugabe, who led Zimbabwe to independence and crushed his
foes during nearly four decades of rule that impoverished his
country, died on Sept 6. aged 95 in Singapore.
Mnangagwa told ruling party supporters in New York where he
is attending this week's United Nations General Assembly that
Mugabe had cancer, but he did not disclose the type.
Mugabe is still to be buried because the government is
building a mausoleum at Zimbabwe's national shrine reserved for
liberation war fighters in the capital. His body is being kept
at his Blue Roof residence in Harare.
"Treatment had stopped, doctors had stopped treatment,
chemotherapy, one, because of age and also because the cancer
had spread and it was not helping anymore," Mnangagwa said in
comments carried by The Herald newspaper on Monday.
In 2011, WikiLeaks released U.S. diplomatic cable that said
Mugabe had prostate cancer that had spread to other organs,
which government officials denied.
During his time in power, and before he was forced to resign
after a coup in November 2017, Mugabe frequently travelled to
Singapore to seek treatment.