PICS: Robert Mugabe buried in rural home town

The coffin of former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is interred during a funeral ceremony at his rural home in Zvimba. Picture: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP

The coffin of former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is interred during a funeral ceremony at his rural home in Zvimba. Picture: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP

Published Sep 28, 2019

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Harare - Former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe was finally

laid to rest in a simple burial in his rural home town of Kutama on

Saturday.

His coffin, adorned in a Zimbabwean flag and white flower

arrangements spelling the word Dad, was placed in front of a

stage-like structure on which his widow, Grace, and family were

seated for the church service.

"It was his last wish to be buried at his rural home," said Shuvai

Gumbochuma, Grace's sister, at the service.

She added that Mugabe felt betrayed and that is why the family

snubbed the state's elite shrine.

Mugabe's burial place caused tension between the government, which

wanted him to be buried at the National Heroes Acre, a hilltop shrine

in the capital of Harare, and his family who wanted him to be laid to

rest in Kutama.

The cover to the grave of former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is interred during a funeral ceremony at his rural home in Zvimba about 100 kilometres north-west of the capital Harare. Picture: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP

The two sides had eventually settled on a mausoleum at Heroes Acre

and a postponement of the funeral until October so that the structure

could be built.

The government was forced to relent on Thursday, however, when the

family took the body back to the home where he was born in 1924.

Onlookers react as they attend the funeral ceremony during the burial of former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe at his rural home in Zvimba about 100 kilometres north-west of Harare. Picture: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP

The grave site, constructed by a Chinese firm, is located in a

courtyard between two homes that belong to Mugabe's first wife, the

late Sally, and his widow.

"We have decided to put the grave here because it's secure and we do

not want anyone to tamper with the body," family spokesman Leo Mugabe

told dpa.

The burial, which was strictly by invitation, was attended by just a

few hundred people, amid tight security.

A cockerel roams across the scene during the funeral ceremony near the coffin of former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, in his rural home in Zvimba. Picture: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP

Many villagers were turned away and the few who were allowed in were

asked to produce national identification cards.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who helped oust Mugabe after his 37

years in power, did not attend.

Former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe was finally laid to rest in a simple burial in his rural home town of Kutama. Video: Kim Kay/African News Agency

In a statement, a spokesman for the ruling Zanu-PF party, Simon Khaya

Moyo, said: "It is unfortunate that the Mugabe family decided to bury

the late founding father at his rural home" because construction on

the mausoleum had commenced.

Grace, wife to former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe attends Mass during a funeral ceremony at his rural home in Zvimba. Picture: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP

Analysts have said that Grace's desire to protect the fortune accrued

by her family during her husband's rule was a factor in the tensions

over the burial.

Mugabe, who died aged 95 in Singapore on September 6, was both

revered for his liberation politics and reviled for his later

dictatorial rule in the southern African country.

dpa

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