The government of angola confirmed today the death of former President José Eduardo dos Santos, who had been in Barcelona (Spain) connected to life support since the end of June.
According to a report from Ephthe Executive announced the news with a message on its social networks, indicating that the death of Dos Santos occurred at 11:10 local time (9:10 GMT) in the clinic where he was admitted.
The Angolan government, currently led by João Lourenço, also sent its condolences to the family and appealed “for everyone’s serenity” in these moments of “pain and consternation”.
Dos Santos ruled Angola between 1979 and 2017 and was one of the African leaders who remained in power for the longest time. His government was marked by high levels of corruption and nepotism, the source points out.
The former president had been admitted at the end of June to a clinic in Barcelona – the city where he had lived since 2019 – and was in an induced coma, connected to life support, after having suffered respiratory arrest.
Since then, strong disagreements had arisen within his family about the steps to follow and, according to this source, one of his daughters filed a complaint in Barcelona on Monday for a possible crime of attempted murder, omission of duty assistance, injuries due to serious negligence and revelation of secrets by those around them.
Part of the family suspects that the 79-year-old former Angolan president may have been the victim of a conspiracy to try to kill him to prevent him from giving his support to the opposition in the Angolan elections next August.
Dos Santos stepped down from power in 2017, after having given up running for a new presidential term. Lourenço succeeded him in office after winning the elections in his own party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which has governed the nation since its independence from Portugal in 1975.
The MPLA lamented the death of dos Santos and decreed national mourning for five days, starting at 00:00 local time on July 9, and announced the formation of an institutional commission to organize the funerals.
With information from Efe and PL.
