Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe opposition leader, is dead

Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the opposition party in Zimbabwe, has died.

Details surrounding his death are still sketchy but Tsvangirai was suffering from colon cancer and had previously been treated at a hospital in South Africa.

He was in a hospital abroad when former President Robert Mugabe gave up power. Tsvangirai had to cut short his trip to witness the transition in his country.

From being a staunch supporter of Mugabe, the deceased became a strong opponent.

Tsvangirai was born in 1952 in the village of Buhera, about 200-kilometres south of the capital Harare.

As a young man, he worked in the mines, rising from plant operator to plant supervisor. He joined Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party at the time of Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.