A hearse carrying the body of Zimbabwe’s ex-president Robert Mugabe left a funeral parlour in Singapore on Wednesday (Sep 11) bound for an airport from where it will be flown back home for burial.

Mugabe, who swept to power after Zimbabwe’s independence from Britain and went on to rule for 37 years until he was ousted in 2017, died on Friday, aged 95.

His health deteriorated after he was toppled by the military and former loyalists in November 2017, ending an increasingly tyrannical rule that sent the economy into ruin.

Relatives and Zimbabwean government officials led by Vice President Kembo Mohadi travelled to Singapore, where Mugabe died after receiving treatment for several months, to collect his body.

A white hearse carrying Mugabe’s body left the funeral parlour, accompanied by police motorbikes, and drove past a group of journalists.

The visiting group, who include Vice President Mohadi, arrived in Singapore on Tuesday and attended a private Catholic mass for Mugabe at the parlour, officiated by a Zimbabwean priest.

Zimbabweans have been divided over how to mourn a former leader once hailed as a liberation hero but who later brutally repressed his opponents.

On arrival in Zimbabwe, Mugabe’s body will be taken straight to his village in Kutama, in Zvimba district west of the capital Harare, from where family elders and chiefs will direct the proceedings.