LUANDA/BARCELONA (Reuters) – Former Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who led Africa’s second-biggest oil producer for nearly four decades, has died aged 79, the state said on Friday. Angolan presidency.
The former president died at 11:10 a.m. (09:10 GMT) at the Teknon medical center in Barcelona following a long illness, the presidency said on his Facebook page.
A spokesperson for the Teknon Medical Center where he was being treated declined to comment.
Dos Santos had been receiving medical treatment since 2019.
Portuguese news agency Lusa reported last month that the former president had been admitted to an intensive care unit at a clinic in Barcelona.
One of Africa’s longest-serving leaders, Jose Eduardo Dos Santos became Angolan president in 1979, succeeding Agostinho Neto, and left his post as head of state five years ago. year.
His presidency was marred by a nearly three-decade-long civil war against the US-backed National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) rebels – which he emerged victorious in 2002 – and a subsequent oil-fueled economic boom.
He was succeeded in 2017 by President Joao Lourenco, who, despite being from the outgoing President’s Popular Liberation Movement of Angola (MPLA), moved quickly to investigate allegations of corruption under the presidency of his predecessor, targeting in particular the children of the former leader.
(Report Bhargav Acharya, Joan Faus and Patricia Rua, Nellie Peyton and Anait Miridzhanian, French version Elitsa Gadea, edited by Jean-Stéphane Brosse)
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