Former Republic of Congo president Jacques Joaquim Yhombi Opango succumbed to coronavirus on Monday in France, his family told AFP.

Yhombi Opango, who led Congo-Brazzaville from 1977 until he was toppled in 1979, died at a Paris hospital, his son Jean-Jacques said. He has dies at the age of 81.

According to his son, Yhombi Opango had been ill before he contracted the virus.

Born in 1939 in Congo’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 1968-77 rule.

Yhombi Opango was ousted by longtime ruler Denis Sassou Nguesso.