Former Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled Africa’s second-largest oil producer for nearly four decades, died on Friday, July 8 2022 according to the presidency.
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According to the statement, the 79-year-old died at the Teknon clinic in Barcelona, Spain, where he was being treated for a long illness.
Dos Santos had been undergoing medical treatment since 2019,
President Joao Lourenco, dos Santos’ successor, declared five days of national mourning and described him as a “unique figure of the Angolan homeland, to which he dedicated himself from a very young age.”
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Jose Eduardo dos Santos frequently described himself as an “accidental president,” having taken over after Angola’s first leader, Agostinho Neto, died in 1979 during cancer surgery.
His rule was marked by a nearly three-decade civil war against US-backed UNITA rebels, which he won in 2002, and a subsequent oil-fueled boom.
He was succeeded in 2017 by Lourenco, who, despite belonging to the incumbent’s People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), moved quickly to investigate allegations of multibillion-dollar corruption during the dos Santos administration.
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