HARARE – Vice President Constantino Chiwenga has been airlifted to India after his health deteriorated last week, ZimLive understands.
Chiwenga flew out by private jet late at night on May 18, and his plane stopped in Dubai for refuelling before landing in New Delhi just before 2PM local time on May 19.
The 62-year-old retired general has been in and out of hospitals over the last two years. He spent two weeks in India in February being treated for what a government minister said was a “minor abdominal ailment”.
A Dubai-registered Airbus A318-100 Elite, with registration A6-CAS, flew nine hours out of Rome, Italy, on May 17 to pick-up Chiwenga for his second medical trip to the Indian capital.
A source told ZimLive: “He had been unwell for at least two weeks before his latest airlift. He received treatment locally during that period, but there was enough concern about his deteriorating health that he had to be flown to an Indian facility with better equipment.”
Chiwenga was conspicuously absent last Friday when President Emmerson Mnangagwa launched his political dialogue with some of his opposition rivals in Harare.
He again missed Cabinet on Tuesday.
The exact nature of Chiwenga’s ailment is unknown, but in recent public appearances he has been seen with adhesive bandage patches on the back of his hands, which medical experts say suggests he has been receiving medication intravenously.
Chiwenga and his wife, Mary, have also been losing their skin pigmentation, a condition which Chiwenga said they first noticed after he led a military coup that ousted former President Robert Mugabe in November 2017.
