Namibian President Hage Geingob was laid to rest in the country’s Heroes’ Acre cemetery on Sunday following a state funeral attended by African leaders, the German president and Princess Anne, the sister of Britain’s King Charles III.
Geingob died earlier this month at the age of 82 while receiving treatment for cancer. He was Namibia’s third president since it gained independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990. Before that, the southern African country was a German colony.
Monica Geingos, delivered a message at a memorial service on Saturday paying tribute to her husband’s rise from humble, rural roots to be his nation’s leader and a widely respected figure on the African continent.
Geingob’s widow, “You were born a peasant and died a president,” Geingos said at the memorial service at a soccer stadium that was filled with mourners.
At his funeral on Sunday, Geingob’s coffin was draped in the Namibian flag and was carried in a glass case on the back of a military trailer.
Representatives from 27 countries attended the funeral, including Princess Anne, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Qatar President Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and 18 heads of state. The leaders of South Africa, Angola, Botswana, Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe all attended.
