Angolan former President admitted to intensive care unit
Angola former President José Eduardo dos Santos was Thursday admitted to an intensive care unit in a Barcelona hospital in Spain.
Former President dos Santos, 79, who has been living in Barcelona for some time, has his condition very serious according to the Portuguese Jornal de Negócios newspaper report.
Other media houses also confirmed that the southern Africa country former head of state´s family members were concerned over the situation.
José Eduardo dos Santos, left the helm in 2017, after 38 years in office.
He began serving in Angola on 11 November 1975 under the country’s first government as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
He also served as First Deputy Prime Minister until December 1978 and Minister of Planning.
In 1979 he succeeded António Agostinho Neto, Angola’s first President.
He was born on 28 August 1942 in Luanda and lived until his youth in the neighbourhood of Sambizanga, and left the country at the age of 19, when he was already a member of clandestine opposition groups to the Portuguese colonial regime.
He was one of the founders of the country´s ruling party MPLA youth wing, which he coordinated abroad, and in 1962 he joined the Exército Popular de Libertação de Angola (EPLA), until the following year he became the party’s first representative in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo.
In September 1975 he joined the elite of the party, being elected a member of the Central Committee and of the Political Bureau of the MPLA, and advanced naturally to the Government of Agostinho Neto, after independence.
In 1976, he achieved the recognition of the country, after an intense diplomatic struggle, as a full member of the Organization of African Unity and the United Nations.