JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Angolan former president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled Africa’s second biggest oil producer for nearly four decades, is in intensive care at a clinic in Barcelona, Portuguese news agency Lusa reported on Thursday, citing a source close to him.
Dos Santos, 79, has been receiving medical treatment since 2019, but his health deteriorated and he was admitted to an intensive care unit, Lusa reported, without saying when this occurred.
One of Africa’s longest serving leaders, dos Santos stepped down five years ago. His rule was marked by brutal civil war lasting nearly three decades against U.S.-backed UNITA rebels – which he won in 2002 – and a subsequent oil-fuelled boom that enriched elites but did little to alleviate widespread poverty.
He was replaced by President Joao Lourenco, who despite being from the incumbent’s People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), swiftly moved to probe allegations of multi-billion dollar corruption during the dos Santos era, targeting the former leader’s children.
Last year, dos Santos returned home for the first time since he went into exile in Barcelona in April 2019.
(This story has been refiled to correct surname to dos Santos, not Dos Santos, throughout, and his age to 79, not 80)
(Reporting by Anait Miridzhanian in Gdansk; Editing by Tim Cocks and Mark Heinrich)
