HARARE, Sept 8 (NNN-Xinhua) — The body of former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe will arrive home next week, his family spokesperson said Saturday.
Mugabe, 95, died Friday in Singapore where he had been receiving medical treatment since April.
At Mugabe’s rural homestead in Mashonaland West province, Leo Mugabe, the former president’s nephew and family spokesperson, told journalists the family had been advised by the government that the plane which will carry Mugabe’s body back home plans to leave Zimbabwe for Singapore on Monday.
“In Singapore, they are preparing the body. We are choosing people that will go. The timing is more like Wednesday when the body will arrive in Zimbabwe,” he said.
Leo Mugabe said the family was still deliberating on where the former leader will be buried.
“The issue to do with burial has not been finalized, what we are doing is we will meet with the protocol people in order to get to those issues,” he said.
The liberation icon has been declared a national hero.
According to Zimbabwe’s tradition, it is customary for national heroes to be buried at the national shrine – the Heroes Acre – in capital Harare. However, the government also allows the family of the deceased to choose the burial place. — NNN-XINHUA
