Tanzania President John Magufuli is dead

• Hassan said that Magufuli was hospitalised on March 6 at the Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute.

• This comes after weeks of speculation on his whereabouts with the suspicion that he had been hospitalised for Covvid-19.

Tanzania President John Pombe Magufuli is dead.

In a televised address on Wednesday night, Tanzania vice-president Samia Suluhu Hassan said that Magufuli had died of heart complications.

Hassan said that Magufuli was hospitalised on March 6 at the Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute and died at Mzena State Hospital in Dar es Salaam

She also announced that the country would get into a 14-day period of mourning as arrangements for the burial are made.

During this period, all flags in Tanzania will fly at half-mast, Hassan announced.

This comes after weeks of speculation on his whereabouts with the suspicion that he had been hospitalised for Covid-19.

Last week, there were reports that the Tanzania president was seeking treatment in Kenya.

After hours of frenzied social media speculation on whether Magufuli had been admitted to the Nairobi Hospital with Covid-19, the government on March 1o put out a statement saying he was not in Kenya.

In a brief one-word statement, Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Macharia Kamau told the Star “No”. This was after he was asked to confirm if Magufuli was admitted to the top city hospital.

Magufuli, who has in the past year proclaimed there was no Covid in Tanzania, had been rumoured to have been struck by the virus and flown to Nairobi on March 8 via an Amref Flying Doctors service.