Namibian President Hage Geingob dies aged 82, weeks after cancer diagnosis

Namibia's President Hage Geingob, 82, died in hospital early on Sunday, the presidency said, weeks after he was diagnosed with cancer.

Geingob had been in charge of the thinly populated and mostly arid southern African country since 2015, the year he announced he had survived prostate cancer.

Vice President Nangolo Mbumba takes the helm in Namibia - a mining hotspot with significant deposits of diamonds and the electric car battery ingredient lithium - until presidential and parliamentary elections at the end of the year.