{"id":34621,"date":"2026-05-16T09:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T07:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=34621"},"modified":"2026-05-16T09:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T07:18:09","slug":"botswana-bids-farewell-to-former-president-festus-mogae-at-state-funeral","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/botswana-bids-farewell-to-former-president-festus-mogae-at-state-funeral\/","title":{"rendered":"Botswana bids farewell to former President Festus Mogae at state funeral"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Botswana is bidding farewell to the former President Dr.\u00a0Festus Mogae who passed away last week at 86.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Several prominent heads of state and regional leaders are attending the State Funeral Service.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Amongst them is former president of Mozambique Joachim Chissano, the past president of Botswana Ian Khama while South Africa is represented by Deputy President Paul Mashatile.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Tributes from the President of Namibia Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah and Seychelles&#8217; Dr. Patrick Herminie have been read. Mogae was an economist and the third President of Botswana, serving from 1998 to 2008.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0A towering figure in African leadership, he guided Botswana through a decade of remarkable economic prosperity and spearheaded globally acclaimed efforts the human immunodeficiency virus or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome pandemic in Botswana.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":34161,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-34621","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Several prominent heads of state and regional leaders are attending the State Funeral Service. \u00a0","published_date":"","news_description":"Several prominent heads of state and regional leaders are attending the State Funeral Service. \u00a0","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34622,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34621\/revisions\/34622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=34621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}