HARARE: Former Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe has been receiving medical treatment in Singapore for the last two months and is no longer able to walk, though he should return home next week, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said on Saturday.
Mugabe, 94, who ruled the southern African nation for nearly four decades since independence from Britain in 1980, was forced to resign in November 2017 after an army coup.
Mnangagwa told ruling ZANU-PF supporters at a rally in Murombedzi, Mugabe’s village some 100 km (60 miles) west of the capital Harare, his predecessor had been due to return on Oct. 15 but that his poor health had delayed the journey.
He did not say what treatment Mugabe had been undergoing. “We have just received a message that he is better now and will return on Nov. 30. He can no longer walk but we will continue taking care of him,” Mnangagwa said, referring to Mugabe by his totem name Gushungo.
During his later years in power, Mugabe made several medical trips to Singapore.
Officials often said he was being treated for a cataract, denying frequent reports by private local media that he had prostate cancer.
Mnangagwa, who won a disputed July 30 presidential vote, repeated the army’s previous justification for last year’s coup, saying his former mentor Mugabe had been surrounded by criminals.
When the army rolled its tanks into Harare, military leaders said they were targeting “criminals around the president.” A bitter Mugabe said later, however, that the army’s action had forced him to resign.
Zimbabwe's Mugabe in Singapore for medical treatment, unable to walk
Zimbabwe's Mugabe in Singapore for medical treatment, unable to walk
- Mugabe had been due to return on Oct. 15 but that his poor health had delayed the journey
- Mugabe, 94, who ruled the southern African nation for nearly four decades since independence from Britain in 1980, was forced to resign in November 2017 after an army coup.
US designates Afghanistan as ‘state sponsor of wrongful detention’
- “The Taliban continues to use terrorist tactics, kidnapping individuals for ransom or to seek policy concessions,” Rubio says
WASHINGTON, United States: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Monday he has designated Afghanistan as a “State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention,” demanding Taliban authorities release two Americans and commit to ending its “hostage diplomacy.”
The move comes just over a week after Iran became the first country added to Washington’s new “wrongful detention” blacklist.
President Donald Trump in September signed an executive order that created the blacklist, similar to designations by the United States on terrorism.
“The Taliban continues to use terrorist tactics, kidnapping individuals for ransom or to seek policy concessions,” Rubio said in a statement.
He said it was “not safe for Americans to travel to Afghanistan because the Taliban continues to unjustly detain our fellow Americans and other foreign nationals.”
“The Taliban needs to release Dennis Coyle, Mahmoud Habibi, and all Americans unjustly detained in Afghanistan now and commit to cease the practice of hostage diplomacy forever,” he added.
Habibi, an Afghan-American businessman, previously served as Afghanistan’s director of civil aviation.
He was arrested in August 2022 in Kabul along with dozens of other employees of his telecommunications company, according to US authorities.
The State Department has issued a reward of $5 million for information leading to Habibi’s return.
Coyle is an academic from Colorado who worked for two decades in Afghanistan before being detained in January 2025, according to the James Foley Foundation.
