Wednesday 29th, October 2014 / 14:07 Written by
Zambian President Michael Sata
has died in London, where he had been receiving treatment for an undisclosed
illness, the government said.
Concern over Sata’s health has been mounting in the country since June,
when he disappeared from the public eye without explanation and was then
reported to be getting medical treatment in Israel.
Zambian President Michael Sata
has died in London, where he had been receiving treatment for an undisclosed
illness, the government said.
Roland Msiska, secretary to the Zambian Cabinet, said in a statement on
Wednesday that Sata died late on Tuesday in London, where he was being treated.
Msiska says Sata’s wife, Christine Kaseba, and other family members
were with the 77-year-old president when he died.
An official told Al Jazeera that the death had been announced to the
cabinet on Wednesday morning.
Sata had left Zambia for medical treatment on October 19 accompanied by
his wife and family members, according to a brief government statement that
gave no further details.
There has been no official update on his condition and acting president
Edgar Lungu had to lead celebrations last week to mark the landlocked nation’s
50th anniversary of independence from Britain.
Concern over Sata’s health has been mounting in the country since June,
when he disappeared from the public eye without explanation and was then
reported to be getting medical treatment in Israel.
He missed a scheduled speech at the UN General Assembly in
September amid reports that he had fallen ill in his New York hotel.
A few days before that, he had attended the opening of parliament in
Lusaka, joking: “I am not dead.” Sata has not been seen in public since he
returned to Zambia from New York in late September.
Sata, who once worked as a railway porter in London, had been the
country’s president since September, 2011 after winning a tight presidential
race against the then incumbent, Rupiah Banda.
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