President Peter Mutharika will go to Zimbabwe on Saturday to attend former President Robert Mugabe’s funeral.
Mutharika is expected to depart through Kamuzu International Airport in Lilongwe.
This will be the Malawi leader’s first foreign trip since he was re-elected president in the May 22 elections.
Mutharika is one of several heads of state and former presidents expected to be in Zimbabwe for the state funeral on Saturday.
Mugabe led Zimbabwe for 37 years before being ousted by the army in 2017. He died in Singapore last week at the age of 95.
His body arrived in Zimbabwe on Wednesday and International dignitaries will bid farewell to the former Zimbabwe leader at the National Sports Stadium on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the former Zimbabwean leader’s family have opposed government’s plan to bury him at the National Heroes Acre, a monument for liberation heroes.
The family has said Mugabe will be buried in his village in Kutama on Monday or Tuesday next week.
“His body will lie in state at Kutama on Sunday night followed by a private burial – either Monday or Tuesday – no National Heroes Acre. That’s the decision of the whole family,” his nephew Leo Mugabe told said on Thursday.
The Mugabe family has also told the Zimbabwean Government to respect the former president’s wishes on how he wished to have his mortal remains interred.
“One of the wishes that the late Robert Gabriel Mugabe indicated was that his wife, Dr Grace Mugabe, must never leave the casket bearing his remains for the duration of the funeral proceedings whilst in Zimbabwe up until his mortal remains have been interred,” the family said.
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