Tanzania’s President leads mourners paying their last respects to John Magufuli

Dar es Salaam, March 20 (06:23 PM PKT) (AFP/APP): Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan on Saturday led mourners in paying their last respects to her predecessor John Magufuli, who died suddenly this week after an illness shrouded in mystery.

Mourners lined the streets of Dar es Salaam to bid farewell to the late president, weeping and throwing flower petals as the casket was transferred by motorcade from a church to Uhuru Stadium where it lies in state.

Hassan, who was sworn in Friday to become the country’s first female president, led a government procession filing past the coffin, which was draped in the Tanzanian flag, and offered her condolences to Magufuli’s wife. Many wore black, or the green and yellow colours of the ruling party, but few inside the stadium or among the packed crowds outside wore face masks in the Covid-sceptic country.

“It is too soon for you to go, father. You touched our lives and we still needed you,” said one mourner, Beatrice Edward. “We lost our defender,” said another, Suleiman Mbonde, a tradesman.

The government announced Wednesday that Magufuli, 61, had died from a heart condition at a hospital in Dar es Salaam after three weeks missing from public view. His unexplained absence fuelled speculation that the famously Covid-sceptic leader was being treated for coronavirus abroad.