Zimbabwe's foreign minister, Sibusiso Moyo, has died after contracting COVID-19, presidential spokesman George Charamba said on Wednesday.
Moyo, a former army general who announced the military coup that led to the removal of the late long-serving leader Robert Mugabe in November 2017. Moyo died at a local hospital early on Wednesday, Charamba said.
"The nation will be kept apprised of further developments regarding this untimely demise of the late minister, himself a decorated soldier and freedom fighter," Charamba said.
Moyo was one of several generals who, after helping plot the coup, were rewarded with senior positions in President Emmerson Mnangagwa's cabinet and the ruling ZANU-PF party.
Another cabinet minister, retired general and agriculture minister Perrance Shiri, died of the virus last July.
Zimbabwe has suffered a surge in COVID-19 infections, with more than half of the 28,675 total cases and 825 deaths being recorded since New Year's Day.
Israel is poised to send troops into Rafah, the Gazan city it sees as the last bastion of Hamas, Israeli media reported on Wednesday, saying preparations were under way to evacuate war-displaced Palestinian civilians who have been sheltering there.
A Russian court on Wednesday ordered one of Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu's deputies be kept in custody on suspicion of taking bribes, the highest-profile corruption case since President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine in 2022.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, a senior figure in the country's ruling party, met with Donald Trump on Tuesday, becoming the latest US ally seeking to establish ties with the Republican presidential candidate.
Russian missiles damaged residential buildings and injured six people in Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, early on Wednesday, Governor Oleh Synehubov said on Telegram.
Five migrants died in an attempt to cross the English Channel from France to Britain in an overcrowded small boat on Tuesday, hours after Britain passed a bill to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda in a move to deter the dangerous journeys.