Jacques Joaquim Yhombi-Opango, the former president of the Republic of the Congo, has died after contracting coronavirus, his family said.
Yhombi-Opango died in a Paris hospital on Monday. He was 81.
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Ex-president Yhombi-Opango was ill before he contracted the coronavirus, his son told AFP news agency.
He led Congo-Brazzaville from 1977 until he was toppled in 1979, being ousted by the country’s current leader, Denis Sassou Nguesso.
Born in 1939 in the country’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 1968-1977 rule.
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.
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He founded the Rally for Democracy and Development party but lost in a 1992 presidential election. May his soul rest in peace.
