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HEALTH-VIRUS-CONGO-FRANCE-POLITICS-OPANGO
Congo ex-president Yombi Opango dies of coronavirus in France
BRAZZAVILLE, March 31, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Former Republic of Congo president
Jacques Joaquim Yhombi Opango died in France on Monday of the new
coronavirus, his family told AFP. He was 81.
Yhombi Opango, who led Congo-Brazzaville from 1977 until he was toppled in
1979, died at a Paris hospital of COVID-19, his son Jean-Jacques said.
Yhombi Opango had been ill before he contracted the virus, his son said.
Born in 1939 in Congo’s northern Cuvette region, Yhombi Opango was an army
officer who rose to power after the assassination of president Marien
Ngouabi.
The troubled, oil-rich former French colony was aligned with the Soviet
Union during Ngouabi’s 1968-77 rule.
Yhombi Opango was ousted by longtime ruler Denis Sassou Nguesso.
Accused of taking part in a coup plot against Sassou Nguesso, Yhombi Opango
was jailed from 1987 to 1990. He was released a few months before a 1991
national conference that introduced multi-party politics in the central
African country.
He founded the Rally for Democracy and Development party but lost in a 1992
presidential election.
Yhombi Opango later allied with elected president Pascal Lissouba, becoming
his prime minister between 1994 and 1996.
When civil war broke out in Congo in 1997, Yhombi Opango fled into exile in
France. He was finally able to return home in 2007, but then divided his time
between France and Congo because of his health problems.
BSS/AFP/GMR/1013 hrs