Robert Mugabe, the controversial former prime minister and president of Zimbabwe, has died aged 95.
Confirming Mr Mugabe had died, Zimbabwe's current President Emmerson Mnangagwa called him the nation's "founding father".
"Mugabe was an icon of liberation, a pan-Africanist who dedicated his life to the emancipation and empowerment of his people," the tweet read.
"His contribution to the history of our nation and continent will never be forgotten. May his soul rest in eternal peace."
A report on Zimbabwean news site ZimLive said Mr Mugabe died this morning in a hospital in Singapore.
Mr Mugabe led his country to independence from Britain and dominated Zimbabwean politics for nearly four decades up to his ousting two years ago.
Known by his supporters as a warrior against white imperialism, Robert Mugabe will be remembered by many in the West as a dictator who presided over the decline of his nation.
Born on February 21, 1924, in a small mission in what was then known as Southern Rhodesia, he was the third of six children.
Mr Mugabe made his name leading the 1970s guerrilla war against Rhodesia's white minority rule, earning a reputation among his countrymen and fellow African leaders as a revolutionary fighting for the freedom of his people.
In 1980, following a campaign plagued by violence and claims of vote rigging, he was sworn in as prime minister, bringing an end to white rule.
He later abolished the position of prime minister and assumed the new role — and additional powers — of president.
Over the next two decades his socialist policies saw Zimbabwe's once reasonably stable economy take a dive, sending much of the population into extreme poverty thanks to hyperinflation and food shortages.
But it was Mr Mugabe's land reforms that will be his most controversial legacy, earning him a reputation in some quarters as a racist dictator.
When he took power, the majority of Zimbabwe's best farmland was owned by whites, who made up less than 1 per cent of the country's population.
Mr Mugabe set about introducing laws to change this, culminating in 2000 when he led a push to "redistribute" white land back to black farmers without compensation.
He unleashed his personal militia of "war veterans" who invaded white farms and attacked his opponents.
Some white farmers fled the country, while many who stayed were tortured and murdered, along with any blacks who worked for them.
Mr Mugabe, who was regularly criticised for his lavish lifestyle, owned three farms which were forcibly seized from their white owners.
But he always defended his crusade against what he called white imperialism, even hitting back at being compared to Hitler.
"This Hitler has only one objective, justice for his own people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people, and their right to their resources," he said.
"If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold."
More to come.
