Robert Mugabe's body was repatriated from Singapore to
Zimbabwe on Wednesday as his family said they were still unsure where he would
be buried. Thousands of people gathered to watch as the plane carrying
dictator's remains landed at Harare's international airport, which bears his
name, early in the afternoon.
The coffin was accompanied by Grace Mugabe, the president's
widow, who had been living in Singapore with her husband since April.
Mugabe's body will lie in state in Harare and at his home
village in Zwimba before a funeral ceremony attended by international
dignitaries at the capital's main sports stadium planned for Saturday.
But an acrimonious row over his final resting place is yet
to be resolved, fuelling rumours in the Zimbabwean capital that the ceremony
may be postponed.
"I don’t yet know whether he will be buried at home,
at the village or what," Leo Mugabe, the former president's eldest nephew,
told the Telegraph on Wednesday. "I am the family spokesman and I hope to
soon find out… so far it is all going OK, as far as we know.”
The Zimbabwean government wants Mugabe to be laid to rest
at Heroes Acre, a cemetery set aside for national dignitaries in west Harare
where a plot for the late president is already marked out alongside the grave
of his first wife, Sally.
But some members of Mugabe's family say the former
president turned against the idea of being buried at Heroes Acre after he was
deposed in a coup in 2017, and asked instead to be buried alongside his mother
in Zwimba, his home village 50 miles from Harare.
Mr Mnangagwa, a former lieutenant of Mugabe who ousted him
in a coup in 2017, held inconclusive talks with tribal chiefs to diffuse the
deadlock on Tuesday.
Leo Mugabe told the Telegraph that even he did not yet know
what had been said at the meeting.
A source close to the Zimbabwean government told the
Telegraph that arrangements for a Heroes
Acre burial had already been put in place and that it was unthinkable that the
founder of the ruling Zanu-PF party be buried anywhere else. Telegraph
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